starin' white face."

This morning Mrs. Royle took me to the village to get some brass to
take home. The shop was a little hut with an earthen floor, a pair of
scales, and one shelf crowded with brass things, made, not for
the European market, but for the daily use of the people, such as
drinking-vessels--_lota_ is the pretty name--and big brass plates out
of which they eat their rice and _dhalbat_. They keep them beautifully
polished with sand, and I think they ought to be rather decorative;
much more attractive certainly than the candlesticks and pots and
cheap rough silver-work which is the usual loot carried away by the
cold-weather visitor.


_16th_.

Another mail-day will soon be upon us; they simply pounce on one.
We have to get letters away by Tuesday from the Mofussil instead of
Thursday as in Calcutta. I look forward with great distaste to leaving
this place next week. When with the Royles one can't imagine oneself
happy anywhere else. The days pass so quickly; breakfast seems hardly
over when it is time for luncheon, and before one has really settled
down to read or write it is four o'clock, and time to go to tea, which
is spread down by the lake among the roses, the sun having lost its
fierceness and begun to think of going to bed. We all sit at a round
table and eat brown bread and butter and jam, all home-made. The china
we use is very pretty and came from Ireland, but Mrs. Royle has been
greatly troubled by its discoloured appearance, which the servants
assured her there was no cure for. I suggested rough salt and
lemon-juice, and after tea yesterday afternoon they brought it, and