Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/195

 meaning of the word 'station' as used in India, but if I stop to explain all the strange and new words that interspersed Berengaria's conversation, I shall develop into a sort of enclycopedia, and never get along at all. When you speak of a station in India, you don't generally mean anything to do with a railway at all. I'm not sure even now if I know just exactly what you do mean. As I said before, everything is a bit vague in India. There are so many things you take for granted and think you quite understand until some tiresome person comes along and asks you to explain them. The station, I think, has now really come to mean the place where any officials have their headquarters. It may mean a lot more, but I certainly think it does mean that. 'There are only about half a dozen houses to call at,' Berengaria was saying. 'We are very short of ladies in the station just now. First, there is Mrs. Ipplethwaite. She takes precedence next to me, but you won't find her very interesting. Somewhere back in the last century one of her ancestors was Governor of Bombay, and she feels it hard luck that she should be in India as anything else. She's married to a dreadful little man, whom, fortunately, one scarcely ever sees. He thinks he's funny when he's only a fool. I can't think why she married him.' How many of our friends there are of whom we can't think why they did it! I caught myself wondering if Mrs. Ipplethwaite in her turn had ever wondered why Berengaria married John.