Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/273

 writing about. I have heard a great deal about you and Eastcombe, and you have no idea of the fun and pleasure of it; much the most amusing day I have had in India, and quite unexpected. We have had a Captain and Mrs. staying with us at Barrackpore. He is a very clever man, about forty-five, and nearly seven feet high; and four months ago he married a little tiny Miss, who is just eighteen, and does not come up quite to his elbow, but is a good-humoured merry little thing, with a pretty face. However, I have always rather fancied her, and now I know why—there is no rule so safe to go by as what is called a fancy. I asked her to go out with me on the elephant yesterday, and as topics are neither many nor original, I asked where she had lived at home, in town or in the country. ‘At Blackheath chiefly,’ she said; whereupon I said, ‘Do you know a place called Eastcombe in that neighbourhood?’ ‘Oh! yes; such a pretty place, and it belongs to a Lady Buckinghamshire, whom one of my uncles knows very well.’ ‘Did you ever see her?’ I said carelessly, which was rather a shame; but I wanted to see what people at the top of