“Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear,” I quoted in sympathy, and he sighed again. “Our Indian women are very backward,” he went on. “Now, there is my retired groom, my livery man—what a woman his English wife is! How finished! What pleasantness! How much nicer a home she makes for him than I can ever get! I will show you the difference.” He called an attendant who had been keeping his eye on me from behind a glass door, and presently the attendant returned with heavy gold ornaments—bracelets, anklets, and necklaces—thickly sprinkled with small turquoises and pearls. “I gave these jewels as presents to my wife,” he said. “They are my own design too. I bought the pearls cheap when the plague was very bad here, and people were glad to sell everything.” I commended this one evidence of ancestral thrift. “Then I took the pearls and turquoises and gold to Paris,” he went on, “and drew out a design for the Parisian jewellers to follow. You see the result. What grace! What finish I You cannot get finish in the East. It is the same with our women. They are backward; they have no finish.” By a mere slip of the tongue I said I greatly admired what I had seen of Hindu ladies, and added something about seclusion and purdah. “Hindu ladies!” he cried indignantly. “They don’t understand what purdah is. They might just as well live shamelessly in public. It is only Mohammedan ladies who practise strict purdah, and seclude themselves with absolute delicacy and refinement.” I assured him I had supposed no less, and his aspect cleared again. Resuming his lightsome smile, he continued— “For myself I am singularly happy. I suppose even the Emperor can hardly be happier than I am?” He said this in a tentative way, as though appealing to my personal acquaintanceship with King Edward. But as I could offer no opinion upon the Emperor’s happiness, he went on— “Every morning I feel like a bird. I wake after my sweet sleep, when the birds are waking too. 1 like to hear them sing, because I know that I am as happy as they can be. I have my troubles of course. I never can induce the gardeners to water my flowers at the right time. They will water them in the evening when the cool night is coming. I tell them they ought to water in the morning, as a protection against the hot days. They promise to obey, and next evening out they go again with their water-pots, as their fathers did before them. There is no science in the East, no progress, no reason.” For an instant this lamentable truth depressed him, but he revived at the recollection of his own assured happiness. “I trust entirely to God,” he said. “I leave everything in His hands, and all goes well. He has always helped me very much. Hitherto He has helped me so that I hardly ever have to work. He has never let me work very much, and I trust everything to His care. I think that is why I am so happy, and feel like a bird in the morning after my sweet sleep.”