and shabby,
and certainly obscure, to have people remark vaguely they suppose
you are "something in India." I suppose we are all snobs at heart.
Snobbery, sir, doth walk about the orb like the sun, it shines
everywhere. A good lady talked to me quite seriously lately about what
the Best People in Calcutta did. It has become a light table joke with
us, and when I plant my elbows on the table and hum a tune while we
are waiting for the next course at dinner, Boggley mildly inquires,
"Do the Best People do that?"

It is a subject I never gave much attention to, but now awful doubts
assail me. Am I the Best People? One thing is certain: I am of very
little importance. I am only a _chota_ Miss Sahib and my _chota_-ness
is my great protection. No one is going to bother much what I do, or
trouble to pull my clothes and my conduct to pieces, and I can creep
along unnoticed to a great extent; I watch the game and find it vastly
entertaining.

It grieves me to say that I am one of the class who ought to remain
in England. There I am quite a nice person up to my lights, fairly
unselfish, loving my neighbour as myself. But I have proved myself
pinchbeck. No, you needn't say I'm sweet, I'm not. I find myself
saying the most detestable things about people. Oblivious of the beam
in my own eye, I stare fixedly and reprovingly at the mote in my
neighbour's. Could anything be more unlovable?

I get no encouragement to be a cat from Boggley. Everyone is his very
good friend.

"Mrs. Wright called to-day," I remark at tea.

"Did she?" says Boggley. "She's a nice little woman; you'll like her."

"She makes up," I say, "and she had on a most ridiculous hat. Mrs.
Brodie says she's a dreadful flirt."

"Rubbish!" says Boggley; "she's a very good sort and devoted to her
husband."

"Mrs. Brodie says," I continue, "that she is horrid to other women and
tries to take away their husbands. It _is_ odd how fond Anglo-Indian
women are of other people's husbands."

"Much odder," Boggley retorts, "that you should have become such a
little backbiting cat! You'll soon be as bad as old Mother Brodie, and
_she's_ the worst in Calcutta."

This is the Christmas mail, and I have written sixteen letters, but
I can't send presents except to Mother and some girls, for I haven't
seen a single thing suitable for a man. Poor Peter wailed for a monkey
or a mongoose, but I told him to wait till I came home and I would do
my best to bring one or both.

I