small knowing economies, much more amusing in recollection than in
practise. We were sodden poor, and that is a fact, poor and
conscientious, which was worse. A big fat spider of a money-lender
came one day into the veranda and tempted us--we lived in a hut, but
it had a veranda--and John threatened to report him to the police.
Poor when everybody else had enough to live in the open-handed
Indian fashion, that was what made it so hard; we were alone in our
sordid little ways. When the expectation of Cecily came to us we
made out to be delighted, knowing that the whole station pitied us,
and when Cecily came herself, with a swamping burst of expense, we
kept up the pretense splendidly. She was peevish, poor little
thing, and she threatened convulsions from the beginning, but we
both knew that it was abnormal not to love her a great deal, more
than life, immediately and increasingly; and we applied ourselves
honestly to do it, with the thermometer at a hundred and two, and
the nurse leaving at the end of a fortnight because she discovered
that I had only six of everything for the table. To find out a
husband's virtues, you must marry a poor man. The regiment was
under-officered as usual, and John had to take parade at daylight
quite three times a week; but he walked up and down the veranda with
Cecily constantly till two in the morning, when a little coolness
came. I usually lay awake the rest of the night in fear that a
scorpion would drop from the ceiling on her. Nevertheless, we were
of excellent mind towards Cecily; we were in such terror, not so
much of failing in our duty towards her as towards the ideal
standard of mankind. We were very anxious indeed not to come short.
To be found too small for one's place in nature would have been
odious. We would talk about her for an hour at a time, even when
John's charger was threatening glanders and I could see his mind
perpetually wandering to the stable. I would say to John that she