There would always be a time when she should go and live with papa and mamma in India, and so long as she was of an age to receive the idea with rebel tears she was assured that papa and mamma would give her a pony.

The pony was no longer added to the prospect; it was absorbed no doubt in the general list of attractions calculated to reconcile a young lady to a parental roof with which she had no practical acquaintance.

At all events, when I feared the embarrassment and dismay of a pathetic parting with darling grandmamma and the aunties, and the sweet cat and the dear vicar and all the other objects of affection, I found an agreeable unexpected philosophy.
I may add that while I anticipated such broken-hearted farewells I was quite prepared to take them easily.

Time, I imagined, had brought philosophy to me also, equally agreeable and equally unexpected.
It was a Bombay ship, full of returning Anglo-Indians.

I looked up and down the long saloon tables with a sense of relief and of solace; I was again among my own people.