This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
286
LETTERS FROM INDIA.

night sooner; but then the older Indians of the party think it as much too cold earlier as we think it too hot. At present their idea is to start February 20.

We had an old Mrs. —— here this morning, a friend of ——, when he was in India before. She has been fifty years in India, barring one year, four years ago, which she spent in England; and she thought it a horrid country, and came out again. She is eighty-four, and is now going home, ‘to give England another chance;’ if she does not like it, then she says she shall come back and settle here for life. She is a fine-looking old body. I fetched George to see her, and when he went away, she said, ‘Well, I have seen a great many Governors-General, but that is the handsomest I recollect—I declare he is very good-looking. Why, ——, you never told me he looked so young; I like his look.’ —— and she walked off arm in arm full of their old jokes. He fetched her here in one of our carriages, and took her home again, and she was quite pleased with the attention. A very fine-looking, very old lady is rather a pleasant sight, particularly here, where there are hardly any very young, or very old people.