cast an anxious glance at the rest of her guests scattered about the
garden.

"There aren't any robbers about here--except my cook," she said
prosaically. "My husband wouldn't allow such a thing in his department,
and in mine he is no good at all. As for the princes, we don't see
anything of the only one this region boasts of. He may be gorgeous, but I
really can not say for certain."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Cary, with a placid smile. "You have been in fairyland too
long, dear Mrs. Carmichael. That's what's the matter with you. You are
beginning to look upon it as a very ordinary, everyday place. If you only
knew what it is to come to it with a virgin heart and mind-thirsting for
impressions, as it were. That is how we feel, do we not, Beatrice?" She
half turned to the girl standing at her side, as though seeking to draw
her into the conversation.

"It is indeed new for _me_," the latter answered shortly, and with slight
emphasis on the personal pronoun.

"I was about to remark that this is scarcely your first visit to India,"
Mrs. Carmichael put in. "I understood that your late husband had a
government appointment somewhere in the South?"

Mrs. Cary's heavy face flushed, though whether with heat or annoyance it
was not easy to judge.

"Of course--a very excellent appointment, too--but the place and the
people!" She became confidential and her voice sank, though beyond
her daughter there was no one within hearing. "Between you and me,