Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/256

244 pected she would remain in India, but I think she took the precaution to leave her heart at home, wise G. One thing you should be thankful for, there will be no more letters. What a blessing people are nicer than their letters! How good you have been about mine, how willing to take an interest in the people I met, in the places I saw, in everything I told you about; and when I was jocose, you pretended to be amused. Ah, well! Be cheerful, sir, our revels now are ended!

And so I am going home, home to my own bleak kindly land, "place of all weathers that end in rain." I am going home to my own people (I think I see Peter jigging up and down in expectation before my trunks); and I am going to you. And the queer thing is, I can't feel glad, I am so home-sick for India. All my horror of bombs and sudden death has gone, and memory (as someone says) is making magic carpets under my feet, so that I am back again in the white, hot sunlight, under the dusty palm-trees, hearing the creak of the wagons, as the patient oxen toil on the long straight roads, and the songs of the coolies returning home at even. I see the country lying vague in the clammy morning mist, and the great broad Ganges glimmering wanly; and again it is a wonderful clear night