Page:Twenty-one Days in India.djvu/186

174 Eve she goes about hand in hand with her friends, in native innocence, relying on what she has of virtue. Sweet simplicity! sweet confidence! My eagle quill shall not flutter these doves.

Have you ever watched her at a big dance? She takes possession of some large warrior who has lately arrived fram the battle-fields of Umballa or Meerut, and she chaperones him about the rooms, staying him with flagons and prattling low nothings. The weaker vessel jibs a little at first; but gradually the spell begins to work and the love-light kindles in his eye. He dances, he makes a joke, he tells a story, he turns round and looks her in the face. He is lost. That big centurion is a casualty; and no one pities him. "How can he go on like that, odious creature!" say the withered wall-flowers, and the Hill Captains fume round, working out formulae to express his baseness But he is away on the glorious mountains of vanity; the intoxicating atmosphere makes life tingle in his blood; he is an, he no longer treads the earth. In a few days Mrs. Lollipop will receive a