in crying softly to
himself over the ruin I had wrought. Some one had cruelly told him
that the Sahib was very angry with him for spoiling the garden, and had
scattered his rubbish using bad language the while. Muhammad Din
labored for an hour at effacing every trace of the dust-bank and pottery
fragments, and it was with a tearful apologetic face that he said,
"Talaam Tahib," when I came home from the office. A hasty inquiry
resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that by my singular favor he
was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took
heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to
eclipse the marigold-polo-ball creation.

For some months, the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his humble
orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fashioning
magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer, smooth
water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pulled, I fancy,
from my fowls--always alone and always crooning to himself.

A gayly-spotted sea-shell was dropped one day close to the last of his
little buildings; and I looked that Muhammad Din should build something
more than ordinarily splendid on the strength of it. Nor was I
disappointed. He meditated for the better part of an hour, and his
crooning rose to a jubilant song. Then he began tracing in dust. It
would certainly be a wondrous palace, this one, for it was two
yards long and a yard broad in ground-plan. But the palace was never
completed.

Next day there was no Muhammad Din at the head of the carriage-drive,
and no "Talaam Tahib" to welcome my return. I had grown accustomed to
the greeting, and its omission troubled me. Next day, Imam Din told me
that the child was suffering slightly from fever and needed quinine. He
got the medicine, and an English Doctor.

"They have no stamina, these brats," said the Doctor, as he left Imam
Din's quarters.

A week later, though I would have given much to have avoided it, I met
on the road to the Mussulman burying-ground Imam Din, accompanied by one
other friend, carrying in his arms, wrapped in a white cloth, all that
was left of little Muhammad Din.

ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS.

If your mirror be broken, look into still water; but have a care
that you do not fall in.

Hindu Proverb.

Next to a requited attachment, one of the most convenient things that