trunks. It never occurred to me that the little girl might have run home to warmth and light and safety. That was no solution—the doll would still have been there. Your letter, with its tale of snow and great quiet forests, and the picture you drew me of the funny little girl with the flaxen plaits and the red stockings, made me remember it. I don't know where my old book is—gone long since from the nursery bookshelf to the dustbin, I expect, for it was much-used and frail when I knew and loved it—but your word-picture gave me the passport and enabled me to creep once again inside its cover, so brave in blue and gold, and to greet my friend in the red stockings, and find her as highly coloured as ever, and not a day older. It is nice of you to say I have a courageous outlook on life, but I wish I hadn't told you the story of the mongoose that was an otter. Now you will say, like Boggley, Funk-stick! If I stay much longer in this frightsome land my hair will be white and my nervous system a mere wreck.
Yesterday we left the solitude of Rika and went to polo at a place about seventeen miles away. It was very interesting to meet all the neighbouring Europeans—mostly planters and their wives. There were about twenty people, and everyone
