Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/64

52 Boggley's bedroom is next his study, but I have to take a walk before I come to mine, out of the window,—or door, I'm never sure which it is,—down some steps, then along a garden-walk, round a corner, and up some more steps, where I reach first a small ante-room and then my bedroom. Like the other rooms, it is whitewashed and has a very high ceiling. Some confiding sparrows have built a nest in a hole in the wall, and—and this is really upsetting—there are ten different ways of entering the room, doors and windows, and half of them I can't lock or bar or fasten up in any way. What I should do if a Mutiny occurred I can't think! My bed with its mosquito-curtains stands like a little island in a vast sea of matting, and there are two large wardrobes, what they call almirahs, a dressing-table, and two chairs. It is empty and airy, and that is all that is required of a bedroom.

The four houses, as I told you, stand in a compound. It isn't exactly a garden, for there are lots of things in it that we would consider quite superfluous in a self-respecting garden. There is a good tennis lawn, plots of flowers, trimly-kept walks bordered with poinsettias, and trees with white, heavily-scented flowers, and opposite my bedroom is a little stone-paved enclosure where