home, and carried them after us into the drawing-room, and then in to dinner, as quietly as possible. It was the pleasantest dinner I have seen in India; not a large dinner, and Sir E. Ryan is a very pleasant man.
The ‘Jupiter’ could not get out of sight yesterday, but is fairly gone to-day; I am very sorry for it. We had become really acquainted with the officers, which is more than we shall be with anybody here; and if they did not really like us (you know my system of not asserting that I have a friend), they all said they did; and for five months, or indeed six now, they have all been doing what they could to please us; and now it seems as if our best friends had forsaken us, as if the carriage had driven off and left us. It is a horrid place to be left in. I thought the physical discomforts of the ship very great, but then I did not know what this oven was. I would have given anything to have gone home in the ‘Jupiter.’ I could not bear to hear all those people saying that they should be at home in September—nice autumn weather, and the month with your
