Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/191

 for, instead of that spectre Miss Fane told you truly I was, I am rather a fat woman than otherwise, and everybody wonders at it every time they see me.

Tuesday, 28rd. We had an immense party to-day, for I had wanted to give them up during the rains, and so they all came to show they could not do without them.

Barrackpore, Saturday, 27th. Fanny and I came up by water on Thursday, which was a delicious cool, grey day, and we had a steamer and thought we should be so quiet; but, as usual, the tide was all wrong, and we were four hours about it.

We have a gentleman here, a great school man, who is come to examine George’s school for prizes. It is astonishing what those boys have learnt in three years—common labourers’ sons—but the native children have a passion for school; the first class are mad about Shakespeare, which to my mind does them great credit. It would take more than three years to teach a village boy to read and discuss the Hindu theatre, and these boys have a very