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 talking to Mrs. Binks. I was rather taken with Mrs. Binks at first sight. She was bright and lively and full of fun, and I could well imagine that she might have been really pretty before the Indian climate played havoc with her complexion. 'Fifteen hot weathers I have stayed down in the plains,' she told me cheerfully. 'Nothing will induce me to leave my husband to struggle on down here all by myself.'

My admiration for Mrs. Binks grew. Fifteen hot weathers in the plains! Of course I didn't know what a hot weather in the plains really meant, but it sounded dreadful and altogether complexion-destroying. Now no woman resigns herself without a struggle to a cracked and parchy skin. It isn't in her nature to sit down quietly and watch her colour fading, and the whites of her eyes get yellow, and the horrid little lines grow deeper all over her face. Yet Mrs. Binks had done all this in order to be at hand to comfort and support Mr. Binks through the long, dreary hot weathers. Of course, after all, it's only what every wife ought to do. What is the use of a wife if she goes and deserts her husband half the year at the mustmost [sic] unpleasant time just when he wants cheering up most. I don't say I shouldn't do it. I probably should, but I think I should feel a bit mean for the first five minutes after I had left him. So I regarded Mrs. Binks as something of a heroine. Alas! it has always been my fate to see my heroes and heroines dashed rudely to the ground sooner or later.