There is no gayer crowd in the universe than this of Simla out for a holiday; though, even as it passed downward, a man with a sober face and a telegram in his pocket passed upwards on a sorry errand. Ten minutes before that telegram handed in to the Club tent had hushed the laughter into silence for a while. 'Cholera, of course,' said some one after that while. 'I heard yesterday from Galbraith it was getting rather stiffish in those parts. Poor old Jackson! After all these years, too.' And then the recipient had ridden off in hot haste, because the poor widow--the widow of his best friend--was coming down at four with his wife to see the steeplechase, and it would be best to prevent _that_, if possible. A sorry errand indeed, past those holiday-makers, to whom he had to give back greeting, irrespective of that death-message in his pocket lest the news might travel too fast. Even to the pallid, pretty-faced young wife raising herself eagerly from her cushions as he passed to ask if Mrs. Jackson had heard from her husband that morning. She had had no letter; but of course Mr. Jackson would have mentioned it if there had been anything wrong with Charlie? Doubtless, Mr. Jackson would have done so, came in answer to the wistful eyes, ere the messenger rode on full of that wrathful, surprised grief which such scenes bring to the average Englishman. And it must not be forgotten that it is in such scenes as these that the foundation of all that is best in our Indian empire is laid. Going to the hills! Whose fault is it that the phrase conjures up to the English ear a vision of grass-widows, flirtations, scandals, frivolities! Surely it is the fault of those who, telling the tale of a hill-station, leave out the tragedy of separation which makes our rule in India such a marvel of self-sacrifice both to the woman and the man. Yet below, in the Club tent, and round the shady ring the laughter went on after its brief check. Mrs. O'Dowb, whose husband had held hill appointments ever since he married a big-wig's daughter, improving the occasion against her bitterest foe, Mrs. Larkins, by declaring that some women had no sense of duty, and seemed to forget that they had sworn at the altar to cherish their husbands. To which her little enemy, using the sharp tongue which captivated mankind in general, assented smilingly; she herself knew women who could not be brought to understand that their absence must be a far greater comfort than their presence. Whereat there was war. A gay crowd indeed! with here and there a surge, accompanied by murmurs of 'Your Excellency,' and a steady circle round some recognised leader holding her little court. Not much interest on the whole, however, over the races, save among a knot of men near the betting-tent, when Dalel Beg, hand in glove with a shady lot of men from a newly-opened hotel, went swaggering about with his jockey's colours pinned on to his coat.