Page:Wanderings in India, and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan.djvu/416

SIMLAH 403 jealousy and of envy that swell the breasts of the various candidates for notice and favour. Nor are the little artifices that are resorted to unworthy of observation and a smile. At this ball there was a lady, the wife of a civilian (a sad fool), who had a great facility in taking likenesses, and she had drawn the Governor General in every possible attitude, both on foot and on horseback. These clever and admirably-executed sketches were laid upon a table in the ball-room, and excited very general admiration; and it was very soon "buzzed about" who was the artist. The wife of another civillian, however, maliciously neutralized the effect these sketches would probably have had, by falsely saying, loud enough for his Lordship to hear, " Ah! she said she would do the trick with her pencil!" The consequence was, that when the lady's husband begged his Lordship would accept this collection of portrait as well as a few sketches of the house inhabited by the Great Man, his Lordship,—as delicately and as gracefully as the circumstances would admit of,—" declined them with many thanks;" just as though they had been so many unsuitable contributions to some popular periodical. The wife of a military officer, however, was rather more fortunate. She, too, had a great talent for drawing, and had taken an excellent likeness in water colours of the Commander-in-Chief's favourite charger—the charger that had carried the old Chief through his battles; and as the lady begged that the Chief would