Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and
there, regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty for the
ring in the presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a
sapphire with two diamonds. We then rode out down the slope
that leads to the Combermere Bridge and Peliti's shop.
While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose
shale, and Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side--while all
Simla, that is to say as much of it as had then come from the
Plains, was grouped round the Reading-room and Peliti's
veranda,--I was aware that some one, apparently at a vast distance,
was calling me by my Christian name. It struck me that I had heard
the voice before, but when and where I could not at once
determine. In the short space it took to cover the road between the
path from Hamilton's shop and the first plank of the Combermere
Bridge I had thought over half a dozen people who might have
committed such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it
must have been singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's
shop my eye was arrested by the sight of four _jhampanies_ in
"magpie" livery, pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw.
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