" The large open names of the home
towns were good to listen to. Umballa, Ludianah, Phillour, Jullundur,
they rang like the coming marriage-bells in her ears, and William
felt deeply and truly sorry for all strangers and outsiders -
visitors, tourists, and those fresh-caught for the service of the
country.
It was a glorious return, and when the bachelors gave the Christmas
Ball, William was, unofficially, you might say, the chief and
honoured guest among the Stewards, who could make things very
pleasant for their friends. She and Scott danced nearly all the
dances together, and sat out the rest in the big dark gallery
overlooking the superb teak floor, where the uniforms blazed, and
the spurs clinked, and the new frocks and four hundred dancers went
round and round till the draped flags on the pillars flapped and
bellied to the whirl of it.
About midnight half a dozen men who did not care for dancing came
over from the Club to play "Waits," and that was a surprise the
Stewards had arranged - before any one knew what had happened,
the band stopped, and hidden voices broke into "Good King
Wenceslaus," and William in the gallery hummed and beat time with
her foot:
"Mark my footsteps well, my page,
Tread thou in them boldly.
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