Lady Canning continued to march with us to Mirzapur, where I took her on board her barge, and bade her farewell--a last farewell, for I never saw this good, beautiful, and gifted woman again.
The camp being broken up, I returned towards the end of February to my work in the Quartermaster-General's Office at Simla.

I found the place deep in snow; it looked very beautiful, but the change of temperature, from the great heat of Central India to several degrees of frost, was somewhat trying.

My wife had benefited greatly from the fine bracing air, and both she and our baby appeared pictures of health; but a day or two after my arrival the little one was taken ill, and died within one week of her birthday--our first great sorrow.
We passed a very quiet, uneventful summer, and in the beginning of October we left Simla for Allahabad, where I had received instructions to prepare a camp for the Viceroy, who had arranged to hold an investiture of the Star of India, the new Order which was originally designed to honour the principal Chiefs of India who had done us good service, by associating them with some of the highest and most distinguished personages in England, and a few carefully selected Europeans in India.

Lord Canning was the first Grand Master, and Sir Hugh Rose the first Knight.
The durbar at which the Maharajas Sindhia and Patiala, the Begum of Bhopal, and the Nawab of Rampur were invested, was a most imposing ceremony.

The Begum was the cynosure of all eyes--a female Knight was a novelty to Europeans as well as to Natives--and there was much curiosity as to how she would conduct herself; but no one could have behaved with greater dignity or more perfect decorum, and she made a pretty little speech in Urdu in reply to Lord Canning's complimentary address.