"Yes," said Mrs. Douglas; "it is very provoking to pay for meals you haven't eaten. And no sooner did we get home than we were all as hungry as hunters! We had to begin after that to get your clothes ready for going to India."
"That was great fun. I did enjoy getting all the new frocks and the hundred and one things I needed. My bridesmaid's frock made a very pretty evening-dress, and I had a white satin one for my presentation, and a pale green satin that was like moonlight. Robbie was dreadfully given to walking on my train when we went out to dinner; I was usually announced to the sound of the rending of gathers. I wonder if other people find as much to laugh at in India as Robbie and I did? Practically everything made us laugh. I can never be sufficiently thankful that I was allowed to have that six months alone with him. It is something precious to remember all my life.... But the leaving him was terrible. By some wangling he managed to get down the river with me; that gave us a few more hours together. He had just left me, and I was standing straining my streaming eyes after the launch, when another boat came to the side of the ship and a man sprang out and came up to me. It was one of Martyrs' young men, Willie Martin, a clerk in a shipping office, who had watched for my name on the passenger list and had come to say good-bye. It was very touching of him. I expect I reminded him of home."
"His people were so pleased that you had seen him," Mrs. Douglas said. "You had to go the minute you came home and tell them all you could about him. He never came home, poor boy! When war broke out he joined up in India, and was one of the missing."
"I know. A decent laddie he was. When we were in Calcutta Robbie and I invited him to tea one Sunday afternoon, and he came, and was so nice and modest and shy; Robbie was loud in his praises because he went away directly after tea. You see, I had got the names of several young men from Scotland who were in business in Calcutta, and we asked them to tea on Sunday afternoons, when they were free, and Robbie didn't like the ones who sat on and on making no move to go away. Some we had to ask to dinner because they hadn't gone away at eight o'clock!"