PROLOGUE PART I. A letter from Mrs. Purcell, of Bombay, to Miss Slarge, of Casterwell, England:-- "29th of May, 189--. "My Dear Sister, My Dear Sister "By this time you will have received my previous epistle, in which I announced the apoplectic seizure and subsequent demise of my beloved husband, Joshua Ezekiel Purcell, lately a faithful and distinguished servant in the Indian Civil Service of her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen and Empress. As over a month has elapsed since my lifelong companion joined the angelic choir, I am now becoming more resigned to my widowed condition, and I begin to contemplate with equanimity the prospect of a solitary future, enlivened, I trust, by the acceptable companionship of sympathizing friends. In thus submitting myself to the inevitable, I have obeyed the inspired advice of the great lexicographer, as expressed in his masterly ethic poem 'The Vanity of Human Wishes':-- 'Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, Obedient passions, and a will resigned.' Thus in some measure I may emulate, as a Christian gentlewoman should, the philosophic composure of the sage Doctor Johnson. "Passing to more mundane considerations, I may mention that the late partner of
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