We had a melancholy death last Sunday--a poor Mrs. G. She lived at Stirling Castle, just above our house, so there never was a day in which we did not meet her, with her two little boys carried after her, either going to fetch Captain G. from his office, or coming back with him. We met her on Friday evening, and stopped to tell her that Lord G. had written to enquire after her. On Saturday evening she was not at all well, and on Sunday morning Doctor W. sent for Doctor D. to consult with him. Doctor D. saw directly that she was in the _blue stage_ of cholera, and before we came out from church she was dead; she was within a month of her confinement, but the child died too. The poor husband was in such a dreadful state, and so was the eldest boy, who is about four years old. W. says he never heard anything so shocking as the poor boy's screams. It was necessary to bury her early on Monday morning, and as it is the custom for all acquaintances to attend a funeral, W. went up to Stirling Castle with Colonel B. None but the most degraded natives will touch an European corpse, so the doctors put her into the coffin, and Colonel B. screwed it down, and they were obliged to borrow the boys of our band to carry her to the grave. Poor Captain G. was not able to go himself, but the little boy had crept out of bed and was clinging to his father, and trying to comfort him. We were to have had a party here in the evening, but put it off; for in such a small society of _Christians_, every possible respect is to be paid to the feelings of any of them. Wednesday, October 3. We had our party, which had been put off on Monday, and it went off very well. It is the last meeting of Simla, so everybody came. A great many go down to the plains this week. Poor things! it is about as rational as if a slice of bread were to get off the plate and put itself on the toasting-fork. We have a month more of this place, but there are horrible signs of preparation, camel trunks and stores going off. I very often think I could have a fit of hysterics when I think we are to have _five_ whole months this year of those deplorable tents, in all that dust and heat. This day three years we embarked from Portsmouth, so we have only got two years and five months more of India. That is really very satisfactory. I begin to think of what I shall say when I see you again. It really will be too great happiness; I never can think of it coolly or rationally. It gets into a medley, and I begin to breathe _shortly_, and to have red ears and pains in my elbows, and then I think it is presumptuous to look on so far; but still it is not so very, very far. Saturday, Oct. 6.