Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/213

 papers that have been lent to us, we have collected garbled accounts of most interesting events. Mrs. S. V’s death I always expected, and it is one of the few cases in which one feels almost secure that it is a change to blessedness. Such a really good life, and there are so few, that it certainly is pleasure rather than pain to think that the race is actually run and won. You have no idea how awful it is to receive a pile of English papers for two months, without letters to break what is to come, or to state it at once; but we go from paper to paper, looking at the list of deaths, not knowing what a day may bring forth. It is horrid!

I have nothing particularly new to say, though of course you are interested in the least details of the interesting people with whom we live. The rains have turned out a total failure, there has not been a drop for the last ten days, and we are steaming up the slop we made at first. However, the evenings are cooler than in the hot season, and the skies wonderfully beautiful.

I think you would like to know about my garden. It is turning out very pretty, though