It was the work of
a moment for her to fulfill her simple task as messenger, and this
done, she burned to hide herself in her own coign of vantage, for
certain new-born ideas of personal decoration were crystallizing
in her excited brain. For the first time in her life, she would be
fair to man's views; so as to justify the partner of her momentous
secret in the complimentary remarks which, even now, made her ears
tingle in delight.
"Do you know aught of this Major Hawke who comes to-day?" wearily,
said the listless girl. "Some one of these red-faced old relics of
my father's early life, I suppose!" The Rose of Delhi was gazing
wistfully out upon the wilderness of beauty in the tangled gardens,
sweeping far out to where the high stone wall shut off the glare
and flying dust of the Chandnee Chouk.
"Certainly not, Nadine!" softly said the governess. "This is only
a peopled wilderness to me!" Her heart smote her as the girl, with
a sudden lonely sinking of the heart, threw her arms around the
neck of her startled companion.
"I am so unhappy here--so wretched, this is but a gleaning white
stone prison, Justine! I stifle in this wretched land! Why did my
father bring me here to die by inches?" There was no pretense in
her stormy sobs.
"We are soon going home, Darling!" cried the affrighted Swiss. "Just
now your father told me that we were all to leave India forever,
and at once.
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