Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/182

 or Lewisham) a little native straw hut, a wigwamy looking thing, with a few cocoa-trees, and over the door a board with ‘Peer Bux, miniature painter,’ written on it, and George and I used to wonder what Peer Bux’s notions of miniatures could be in that little windowless hut. It was close by the bodyguard barracks, and since we came back one of the officers of the bodyguard went in and sat to Peer Bux, who made out a very good likeness of him—rather stiff, but beautifully finished—and now he has done another of Captain Hill, which, with a few suggestions of perspective, &c., is so good that I thought he might be allowed to make a copy of you on ivory; so yesterday he carried you off, and I don’t know how you feel, but you are now residing in Peer Bux’s wigwam, and he is making some slight alteration in your cap and sleeves and reducing you to three inches by two. Is it painful? If he should send you back with a deep brown complexion, black hair, and a quantity of bangles on your arms, you must excuse his native prejudices; but I shall be horribly disappointed if he does not make an excellent miniature from that picture, and I am very fond of it, sister, for your dear sake.