remember. 'Dearest mamma,' she said, as I was departing,
'there is only one "p" in "opulence", isn't there?'

'Yes,' I replied, with my hand on the door-handle, and added curiously,
for it was an odd word in Cecily's mouth, 'Why?'

She hardly hesitated. 'Oh,' she said, 'I am just writing down one or two
things Mr. Tottenham said about Agra before I forget them. They seemed
so true.'

'He has a descriptive touch,' I remarked.

'I think he describes beautifully. Would you like to hear what he said
today?'

'I would,' I replied, sincerely.

'"Agra,"' read this astonishing young lady, '"is India's one pure idyll.
Elsewhere she offers other things, foolish opulence, tawdry pageant,
treachery of eunuchs and jealousies of harems, thefts of kings' jewels
and barbaric retributions; but they are all actual, visualized, or
part of a past that shows to the backward glance hardly more relief
and vitality than a Persian painting"--I should like to see a Persian
painting--"but here the immortal tombs and pleasure-houses rise out of
colour delicate and subtle; the vision holds across three hundred years;
the print of the court is still in the dust of the city."'

'Did you really let him go on like that?' I exclaimed. 'It has the
license of a lecture!'

'I encouraged him to. Of course he didn't say it straight off. He said
it naturally; he stopped now and then to cough. I didn't understand it
all; but I think I have remembered every word.'

'You have a remarkable memory. I'm glad he stopped to cough. Is there
any more?'

'One little bit. "Here the moguls wrought their passions into marble,
and held them up with great refrains from their religion, and set them
about with gardens; and here they stand in the twilight of the glory of
those kings and the noonday splendour of their own."'

'How clever of you!' I exclaimed. 'How wonderfully clever of you to
remember!'

'I had to ask him to repeat one or two sentences. He didn't like that.
But this is nothing. I used to learn pages letter-perfect for Aunt Emma.
She was very particular. I think it is worth preserving, don't you?'

'Dear Cecily,' I responded, 'you have a frugal mind.'

There was nothing else to respond. I could not tell her just how
practical I thought her, or how pathetic her little book.

Chapter 1.VI.

We drove together, after dinner, to the Taj. The moonlight lay in an
empty splendour over the broad sandy road, with the acacias pricking up
on each sid