The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1903-07-24

| self and the club, that Miss Rowan
| was pretty and rode well. and could
| talk of India and its people even il
she were totally ignorant of al
| things English, and could not appre-
ciate the difference between an M
p. and county councillor. So he
in his heavy way, taught her little
concerning England, and she, un-
knowingly, taught him many things
Indian, and society, as known in
Nara, having gone down to Cal
cutta, there were fewer venom tipped
| tongues to wag.
Not that Rose would have cared If
all Anglo-India had risen to forbid
! her intercourse with this youthful
civilian, who represented to her the
whole glory of the British empire and
the perfection of mankind. She
adored with an unreasoning adora-
ton which would have been foolish
and superfuous in the heroine of a
penny novelette,.
She was only 20, and life SO far
had meant to her a convent school
and Nara, with occasional weeks at
Lucknow, and one whole fortnight of
dissipation in Calcutta.
Moreover, she had the nature of a
saint rather than fiirt, and it was
her amazingly angelic temper which
most won Frewin. A man likes that
sort of Griselda girl-until it pals,
and he wants a change.
So they rode and danced and dined
together throughout the four
months winter. while Mrs Burton
beamed proprietyl and conveniently
went to sleep.
There was no definite engagement,
but Just mutual understanding which
seems almost sweeter when you are
young and foolish, and the world is
gay-the state which versteht SIGH
Won selbst, as the expressive German
phrase goes.
Frewin wrote home fanciful ac-
counts, in confidence, to his favorite
sister Git is curious fact that most
griffins do this), and wrote Rose
many chits when he should have been
attending to the service of govern
ment. The spring wind blew rose
leaves through their small particu-
lar world and made life glad thing.
March brought back Nazra's sum-
mer population, including sundry of
the heaven born, without whose guild
ing hands the station managed to do
very well during the winter months,
but who were absolutely necessary
to the working of things there when
it began to warm up in the plains.
Old C. S. men. with many rupees
and few joys, owing to their touchy
livers-or their wives; younger ditto,
to whom Nara meant little work,
much gayety, and many dirtations,
and who voted India immense" not
being able to see from their comfort
able place on the top rung that An
glo-India was situated chiefly at the
bottom of the latter, in steaming
plains, where there was small leisure
and less heart for polo and lawn ten
mis-; sick men who had been consider
ately sent up by their firms in or
der to save giving them six months
to England; men without their wives,
longing for them daily; men with
their wives, wishing them anywhere
but in Nara hourly; pallid, snarly-
tempered women, with babies that
were ditto, only more so; objection
able Anglo-Indian children, compared
with whom the American genus is as
an angel-all the miscellaneous, I'M
wholesome collection, of varied color,
which swarms up to an idyllic hill
station and make it hades.
The Nara crowd included the usual
limited number of ''just out" girls,
brought out by their respective rela-
tives as manageable lots, under
which heading came Miss Ethel May
nard. She was the most perfect
specimen possible of the conventional
English girl-7tall, fair, well-dressed,
warranted irreproachable in CONVEX
sation and department, with a knowl-
edge of all the polite accomplish
ments and no grain of originality
or tenderness in her whole body
the kind of a woman a man marries
because she suits his dining table and
the family plate. He is never
ashamed of her, but as the years go
on he gets very tired, and generally
he lives his real life apart.
1t was at what the newspaper hack
still continues to describe as minor
function" that Miss Maynard met
Miss Rowan; naturally, Miss Rowan,
being associated with trade, was not
asked to the great functions.
THAT is Miss Rowan?" in response
to Frewin's directing nod. "Oh!"-
the Englishwoman's nasty little ''Oh!"
with significant pause after it.
"She is the"-Miss Maynard almost
said ''person"-'the same who did
that extraordinary thing last week
galloped a mile and half at night,
alone, to see some native?"
She was still honoring Rose with
the stare known in vulgar English as
polite. Frewin, not being large
minded man, felt awkward under
Miss Maynard's disapproval. Yet he
had thought at the time, when Rose
had shyly told him of the incident,