Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/166

 pore, but all our nice cool weather is gone, and it is hardly possible to breathe, and we had our morning visitors for two hours and a half on Friday. I cannot think how we ever lived through two days of morning visits—one here and one at Calcutta—formerly. I thought we must have died as one set of officers came in after another, all looking exactly like each other and streaming with the heat, being uniformed up to their chins. Fanny fairly gave it up; I sat through three more sets, and then, if luncheon had not come, I think I should have died, and should merely have been recognised as a large tired spot of grease on the sofa.

Little Frank H is a very nice child; talks English to begin with, which is unusual, and he is manly and amusing. He always made point in camp of taking off his hat to nobody but the Governor-General. Fanny and I used to try to make him bow to us, but he always sat bold upright on his elephant and gave us a nod; and if Mrs. H told him to take off his hat, he said he had a rule about it, and therefore he could not. George gave him a silver cup yesterday, which delighted him, and he came over to luncheon and drank George’s