accustomed to the other
little girls. I had rooms of my own; and French friends of my father's
visited me and took me out on half-holidays. And Aunt Felicia came over
to fetch me for the summer vacations and brought me here"--

Damaris pointed across the tide-way to the river frontage, including with
one sweeping gesture the whole demesne of The Hard from the deep lane on
the one hand, opening funnel-like upon the shore, past sea-wall--topped
at the corner by pink plumed tamarisk, the small twin cannons and pyramid
of ball--the lawn and irregular white house overlooking it, backed and
flanked by rich growth of trees, to a strip of sandy warren and pine
scrub on the other, from out which a line of some half-dozen purple
stemmed, red branched Scotch firs, along with the grey stone built Inn
and tarred wooden cottages on the promontory beyond, showed through a
dancing shimmer of heat haze, against the land-locked, blue and silver
waters of Marychurch Haven.

"I did not like being here at all at first," she told him. "I thought it
a mean place only fit for quite poor people to live in. The house seemed
so pinched and naked without any galleries or verandahs. And I was afraid
because we had so few servants and neither door-keepers or soldiers. I
could not believe that in England there is so little need for protection
against disaffected persons and thieves. The sunshine was pale and thin,
and the dusk made me sad. At Bhutpur the sun used to drop in flame behind
the edge of the world and night leap on you. But here the day took so
long dying. Aunt Felicia used to praise what she called 'the long sweet
English twilight,' and try to make me stop out in the garden to enjoy it
with her. But I could not bear it. The colours faded so slowly. It seemed
like watching some helpless creature bleed to death silently, growing
greyer minute by minute and feebler. I did not want to watch, but go
indoors where the lamps were lighted and it was warm and cosy. I used to
cry dreadfully, when I could get away by myself where Aunt Felicia and
the maids could not see me, cry for my father--he resigned the
Commissionership, you know, when I was sent home and took service in
Afghanistan under the Ameer--and for my darling friend, Mrs. Pereira, and
for the Sultan-i-bagh, where I knew strangers lived now. For the lotus
tank and orange grove, and all my little tame animals and my pretty
play-places I should never, never see any more"--

Overcome by