Mrs. Lakin, hitherto engaged in cutting up cake and waiting on the company, now took a seat beside me and proceeded to break the ice. I noticed that her complexion was a pale biscuit colour, and her blue eyes looked faded, but she had a sweet expression--perhaps once upon a time she had been pretty.
"So I hear you are a new-comer. I wonder what you will think of India."
"So far, I like it immensely," I answered.
"There have been wonderful changes since I set foot in the country. That was thirty years ago. Then this club was a small affair, and stood farther down where the shop is now. Everything is made so comfortable in these days. People rush backwards and forwards to England for a few weeks' holiday. Formerly it was a wonderful thing if you got home once in five or six years. All the same, I liked those times best."
"Well, it's not altogether because everything was quarter the price, though of course that does make a difference, especially when you have a large family. Things were quieter and easier. Generals did not come hustling round when they were least expected, and you and your friends were left in a station for three or four years instead of being whipped off as now at a moment's notice. The servants were a superior class, and one grew attached to them, and almost every girl that came to India was bound to find a husband."
"Oh yes, it's as difficult to get off a girl here as it is elsewhere. In these days when the exchange is so low, sending home money is ruination--people bring out their families, and the country is overrun with paying guests, and this, in India, so famous once for hospitality! My two girls are married--not grand matches, but to really good fellows--and I must confess I miss them. My husband and I are alone--just Darby and Joan. I am sorry to say that his time will soon be up, he will be retired, and we go home for good next spring."
"You see I was born out here, as were my father and mother before me. We come of families who have made their home in India for many generations--educated of course in England, they all return like homing pigeons to the Army, to the Civil Service, and to many other posts. India draws them--they _all_ hear the East a-calling."