Her own People by B. M. Croker

The band had played the men back to barracks to the rousing tune of "When Johnny comes marching Home again"; it was eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, and Captain Haig, who had been to Parade Service, walked across the maidan to pay a morning call. His thoughts were still full of one subject -- Verona Chandos, and he was anxiously debating whether to go to Manora or not? The question had kept him awake for hours; it had harassed him through the Book of Common Prayer, and the text of the padre's sermon had been, "To go to Manora or not? " Something in Verona's eyes magnetised him and drew him towards her, to be instantly driven away by her swarm of terrible relations, and they really were her own kindred; he had heard all about them at the mess. Malcolm Haig was on his way to see his cousin (once removed), Jimmy Fielder, and to have a friendly "bukh" with him in his own diggings. He knew all about Master Jimmy's affairs, and why he was now languishing on the plains of India. Lord Highstreet, who was a cast-iron parent of the so-called old school, had cut off the supplies, and sent his heir into banishment -- sent him to the East in order to be out of harm's way, for, by all accounts, there were no widows in India. The native women were very properly burnt, and the Europeans were of the innocuous species, termed "grass," and not matrimonially dangerous. Captain Fielder was sprawling on a Bombay chair in the verandah, still clad in a smart blue silk sleeping suit and a pair of straw bath-slippers, and was engaged in reading a French novel, and smoking a Russian cigarette.

"Hullo! " he exclaimed, half rising, as he descried his cousin.