Brookes, I know, would think that I should dwell at greater length upon Miss Anderson’s attack of faintness in Kalka, and the various measures which were resorted to for her succour, but perhaps the feelings and expedients of any really capable lady’s-maid under the circumstances may be taken for granted. I feel more seriously called upon to explain that Colonel Horace Innes, shortly after these last events, took two years’ furlough to England, during which he made a very interesting tour in the United States with the lady with now bears his name by inalienable right. Captain and Mrs. Valentine Drake are getting the most that is to be had out of Frederick Prendergast’s fortune with courage in London and the European capitals, where Mrs. Drake is sometimes mentioned as a lady with a romantic past. They have not returned to Simla, where the situation has never been properly understood. People always supposed that Mrs. Drake ran away that June morning with her present husband, who must have been tremendously fond of her to have married her ‘after the divorce.’ She is also occasionally mentioned in undertones as ‘the first Mrs. Innes.’ All of which we know to be quite erroneous, like most scandal. Mrs. Mickie and Mrs. Gammidge, in retirement, are superintending the education of their children in Bedford, where it is cheap and practical. They converse when they meet about the iniquitous prices of dressmakers and the degeneracy of the kind of cook obtainable in England at eighteen pounds a year. Mrs. Gammidge has grown rather portly and very ritualistic. They seldom speak of Simla, and when they do, if too reminiscent a spark appears in Mrs. Mickie’s eye, Mrs. Gammidge changes the subject. Kitty Vesey still fills her dance cards at Viceregal functions, though people do not quote her as they used to, and subalterns imagine themselves vastly witty about her colour, which is unimpaired. People often commend her, however, for her good nature to debutantes, and it is admitted that she may still ride with credit in ‘affinity stakes’--and occasionally win them. 4. The Pool in the Desert. I knew Anna Chichele and Judy Harbottle so well, and they figured so vividly at one time against the rather empty landscape of life in a frontier station, that my affection for one of them used to seem little more, or less, than a variant upon my affection for the other. That recollection, however, bears examination badly; Judy was much the better sort, and it is Judy’s part in it that draws me into telling the story. Conveying Judy is what I tremble at: her part was simple. Looking back--and not so very far--her part has the relief of high comedy with the proximity of tears; but looking closely, I find that it is mostly Judy, and what she did is entirely second, in my untarnished picture, to what she was. Still I do not think I can dissuade myself from putting it down.