evidently begins to think ‘papa and mamma’ were right in withholding for a year their consent to her marriage. I think she wishes they had held out another month. There is another, Mrs. , only fifteen, who married when we were at the Cape, and came from there at the same time we did, and went straight on to her husband’s station, where for five months she had never seen an European. He was out surveying all day, and they lived in a tent. She has utterly lost her health and spirits, and, though they have come down here for three weeks’ furlough, she has never been able even to call here. He came to make her excuse, and said, with a deep sigh, ‘Poor girl! she must go back to her solitude. She hoped she could have gone out a little in Calcutta to give her something to think of.’ And then, if these poor women have the comfort of children, they must send them away just as they become amusing. It is an abominable place. I do not mean so much for us, who come for a short time and can have a fleet, or an army to take us anywhere for change of air if we have pains in our sides, but for people who earn their bread in India, and must starve if they give it up.
