But the
biggest trouble Pluffles ever manufactured came about at Simla--some years
ago, when he was four-and-twenty.
He began by trusting to his own judgment, as usual, and the result was that,
after a time, he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver's 'rickshaw wheels.
There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress.
She was bad from her hair--which started life on a Brittany's girl's head--to
her boot-heels, which were two and three-eighth inches high. She was not
honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee; she was wicked in a business-like
way.
There was never any scandal--she had not generous impulses enough for that.
She was the exception which proved the rule that Anglo-Indian ladies are in
every way as nice as their sisters at Home.
She spent her life in proving that rule.
Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. They heard far too much to
clash; but the things they said of each other were startling--not to say
original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest--honest as her own front teeth--and, but
for her love of mischief, would have been a woman's woman. There was no
honesty about Mrs. Reiver; nothing but selfishness. And at the beginning of
the season, poor little Pluffles fell a prey to her.
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