Still, she must be seeing. She could no more sit
still than a fidgety child or a monkey at the Zoo. To be up and
doing was her nature--doing nothing, to be sure; but still, doing it
strenuously.
So we went the regulation round of Delhi and Agra, the Taj Mahal, and
the Ghats at Benares, at railroad speed, fulfilling the whole duty of
the modern globe-trotter. Lady Meadowcroft looked at everything--for ten
minutes at a stretch; then she wanted to be off, to visit the next thing
set down for her in her guide-book. As we left each town she murmured
mechanically: "Well, we've seen THAT, thank Heaven!" and straightway
went on, with equal eagerness, and equal boredom, to see the one after
it.
The only thing that did NOT bore her, indeed, was Hilda's bright talk.
"Oh, Miss Wade," she would say, clasping her hands, and looking up
into Hilda's eyes with her own empty blue ones, "you ARE so funny! So
original, don't you know! You never talk or think of anything like other
people. I can't imagine how such ideas come up in your mind. If _I_ were
to try all day, I'm sure I should never hit upon them!" Which was so
perfectly true as to be a trifle obvious.
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