Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/267

 talked nonsense, I really have not heard any nonsense for a very long time; but I hope at Calcutta everybody is not always grave.’ I cannot hold out to her the most distant prospect of a joke, except the little we do in that way ourselves, and that grows less every day.

Wednesday, November 30. We were to go to Dwarkanauth Tagore’s fireworks at night, so I would not ride, as the smallest possible quantity of fatigue is the grand aim of an Indian day, and I took a solitary drive by the river-side, and detected one of our boats coming up the river, and in it a remarkably fat rosy-looking young man, who turned out to be Captain returning from his three months’ cruise, perfectly well. Dr. Drummond, who knew him when he first came out to India, says he thinks him now in much better health than he was then. I could not have believed three months could have made such a difference in anyone. I drove down to the Ghaut and took him into the carriage, and he seemed really glad to be back again. He has brought us a great many pretty things—fans and card-cases and Chinese monsters, and