hat is
my husband), after entering my room with a robust and sunburned
appearance that did my heart good, merely observed--as soon as we had
exchanged greetings--that he had brought home a pretty snake which
"wouldn't (just as long, that is to say, as it couldn't) do the
slightest harm,"--an evasive assurance which I accepted as became the
nervous wife of an enthusiastic naturalist. I believe I insisted on its
not coming into the house.

The cook, indeed, on my husband expressing a wish to put it in the
kitchen, had taken up a firmer position: she had threatened to "scream"
if "the vermin" were introduced into her premises; which ultimatum,
coming from a stalwart young woman with unimpaired lungs, was
sufficient.

Fortunately the weather was very hot (being in July of the
ever-memorable summer of 1893), so it was decided that the Blue Dryad,
wrapped in flannel and securely confined in a basket, should be left in
the sun, on the farthest corner of the verandah, during the hour or so
in the afternoon when my husband had to visit the town on business.

He had gone off with a cousin of mine, an officer of Engineers in
India, stationed, I think, at Lahore, and home on leave. I remember that
they were a long time, or what seemed to me a long time, over their
luncheon; and the last remark of our guest as he came out of the
dining-room remained in my head as even meaningless words will run in
the head of any idle invalid shut up for most of the day in a silent
room. What he said was, in the positive tone of one emphasizing a
curious and surprising statement, "D'you know, by the way, it's the
_one_ animal that doesn't care a rap for the cobra." And, my husband
seeming to express disbelief and a desire to change the subject as they
entered my boudoir, "It's a holy fact! Goes for it, so smart! Has the
beggar on toast before you can say 'Jack Robinson!'"

The observation did not interest me, but simply ran in my head. Then
they came into my room, only for a few moments, as I was not to be
tired. The Engineer tried to amuse Stoffles, who was seized with such a
fit of mortal boredom that he transferred his attentions to Ruby, the
Gordon setter, a devoted and inseparable friend of mine, under whose
charge I was shortly left as they passed out of the house. The
Lieutenant, it appears, went last, and inadvertently closed without
fastening the verandah door. Thereby hangs a tale of the most trying
quarter of an hour it has been my l