lovely creature," said Mrs. Thompson pleasantly. "I
should think she is quite the prettiest girl in Simla this year."

"I think she is," the mother agreed; "but I am afraid she will be very
difficult to manage. She is only just out of the schoolroom, you know,
and girls are so unpractical. She doesn't care to talk to any one but
the subalterns and boys of her own age--and it is so important she
should settle this year. You know we retire next year."

"It is early days yet," said the other cheerfully.

She had come out to India herself as the bride of a very rising young
civilian, and she knew nothing of the campaign of the mothers at Simla.

Elma indeed looked a lovely creature when she came out of her room an
hour or two later to show herself to her mother before she stepped into
the hated jampan. Her dress was a delicate creation of white lace and
chiffon, with illusive shimmerings of silver in its folds that came and
went with every one of her graceful movements. She was a tall and
slender girl, with a beautiful long white throat, smooth and round, that
took on entrancing curves of pride and gentleness, of humility and
nobleness. She had splendid rippling hair of a deep bronze, that had
been red a few years earlier; and dark blue dreamy eyes under broad dark
eyebrows; a long sweep of cool fair cheek, and a rather wide mouth with
a little tender, pathetic droop at the corners.

"That frock certainly becomes you to perfection," said the mother. "I
hope you will enjoy yourself; and do try not to let the boys monopolise
you this evening. It is not like a dance, you know, and really, it is
not good form to snub all the older men who try to talk to you."

Elma lifted her long lashes with a glance of unfeigned surprise. "Oh,
mother," she said humbly, "how could I snub any one? I am afraid of the
clever men. I like to talk to the boys because they are as silly as I am
myself, and they would not laugh at me for saying stupid things."

"No one is going to laugh at you, goosey," said her mother.

"I wish I was not going," said Elma.

The ayah came out of the bedroom, and wrapped the tall young figure in a
long white opera-cloak; and then they all went down together to the
front verandah, where the jampans waited with the brown, bare-legged
runners in their smart grey and blue liveries.

Mrs. Macdonald started first. "Don't call out _jeldi_ too often, Elma,"
she called back, laughing: "I don't want to be run over."

A