Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/15

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LETTERS FROM INDIA.
3

last, those herons’ feathers. They came to me, as you will see, in two round ostentatious cases. I grumbled over them for a week, because I think they look rather like crows’ feathers fainted away. However, when I was ejaculating over them, and showing them to Emily, sneering a great deal at clever ——, and a great deal at you for thinking those could be what you wanted, his jemadars made a dart at them, expressed many Eastern signs of admiration and astonishment, and said that except Runjeet Singh nobody ever had such. From which I judge that you and he must be very much alike in your ways. Lady William Bentinck had some, and wore them with a turban and a diamond; the jemadars evidently thought it was a grand moment for her, and said, ‘I suppose it only Lady Bentinck who wear these in England.’ In the meantime I do not know their price, but I should think not above 500,000 rupees; of course, no object to you. Perhaps they may be less; indeed, I have a notion that Major —— mentioned fifty rupees as their probable price. I will honestly let you know. I have put in some black feathers with a white stripe. You need have no scruple about letting