a merciful superstition, which regards the climate of India as deadly
to European children, will step in and save the little soul. The
climate would do it no harm, but there is a moral miasma more baneful
than any which rises from the pestilential swamps of the Terai, or
the Bombay Flats.

P. S.--I have just taken another look at our present Ayah. She is a
little old woman from Goa, with humorous "crow's feet" at the corners
of her kind eyes. She is very retiring and modest, and all the
servants seem fond of her. It is evident that nature is various, and
we cannot all be types.



R. R. THE PUNDIT



The Pundit is like duty; his cough rouses us from our beds in the
morning like the voice of conscience. Why must we pass examinations?
Not that we may know the language of the people, for it is matter of
daily observation, that of all the mysteries which perplex the humble
mind of the country bumpkin in this land, causing him to scratch his--
well, not his head--there is none which he gives up as hopeless
sooner than the strange sounds addressed to him by the young saheb
who has just passed his higher standard. He joins his palms in loyal
acquiescence, and asserts that the gentleman is his father and
mother. It was Swift, was it not, who suggested that all high
offices of state should be filled by lot, because the result would be
on the whole quite as satisfactory as that obtained by the present