Farewell.
Though, O budding Inter-M.B.,
You may now perchance pro tem. be
Not indifferent to a simple English maid,
Soon the daughters dark and dingy
Of the land of Ranjitsinhji,
Will be throwing her completely in the shade.
And shall Mary thus be stranded,
When she had you almost landed
(Yes, the metaphors are mixed, but never mind)?
Oh, imagine her emotion
When the cruel Indian Ocean
Separates you from the girl you left behind.
It was nearly a week before I heard from Grace. Then she wrote:—
"Dear Edwin,—It was really too sweet of you to send the second set. We have discovered, however, that Mary's friend is a Parsee, and therefore a worshipper of the sun, and she thinks the last line in the first verse would offend his family's religious scruples. She fears, too, that he might not endorse the epithet 'dingy' as applied by you to his female compatriots. So we have decided not to write in his album. I think however that the first poem (with modifications) would do for the album of a friend of my own, whose name, as it happens, is George. So I have asked the vicar to tone it down for me. He is a Durham man. Do you mind?
Yours affectionately,
Grace."
I read her letter, and breathed a deep sigh. Then seizing a telegraph form, I wired: "Have no objection to Durham vicars. Am ordering salt-cellars. Do not write again. Edwin."