Star of India

								


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STAR OF INDIA

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Into Temptation
Late in Life
The Spell of the Jungle
East of Suez
Red Records
The Stronger Claim
The Waters of Destruction
Idolatry
The Charm
The Anglo-Indians
The Happy Hunting Ground
The Woman in the Bazaar
Separation
Tales that are Told

STAR OF INDIA

BY
ALICE PERRIN
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First published 1919

DEDICATED TO MY COUSIN,
BEATRICE MARY BYNG HOLDEN

STAR OF INDIA

PART I

CHAPTER I



     I dare not choose my lot;

       I would not if I might.

     Choose thou for me, my God,

       So shall I walk aright.

The rustic portion of the congregation shouted the familiar hymn with
laborious goodwill, overpowering the more cultivated voices that rose
from the chancel and the front pews--almost defeating the harsh notes
wrung from the harmonium by the village schoolmistress, who also led the
singing in a piercing key, supported raucously by her pupils gathered
about the unmusical instrument. Even in the early 'nineties nothing so
ambitious as an organ or a surpliced choir had as yet been attempted in
this remote west-country parish, though with the advent of the new vicar
innovations had begun; actually, of late, the high oak pews had been
removed to make way for shining pitch-pine seats that in the little
Norman church produced much the same effect as a garish oleograph set in
an antique frame. Most of the parishioners approved the change;
certainly it had the advantage of permitting everyone to observe at
leisure who came to church, what they wore, and how they behaved during
the sermon, even if those who were somnolently inclined found the
publicity disconcerting.
Stella Carrington, for one, infinitely preferred the new seats. Though
no longer a child--seventeen last birthday--she could never quite forget
the hours of misery she had endured in the old pew; the smell of dust
and hassocks, the feeling of captivity, the desperate impulse that would
assail her to kick open the door, to fling a prayer-book over the
barrier, to jump up on the seat; only the fear of grandmamma's wrath had
restrained her from such antics. This Sunday, as she stood between Aunt
Augusta and Aunt Ellen, singing the hymn that preceded the sermon,
recollections returned to her of her childhood's trials in the high pew,
and with these, unaccountably, came the old sense of imprisonment. The
feeling disturbed her; she searched her mind for the cause, and became
conscious that it was somehow connected with the presence of Maud
Verrall, seated with her parents in the religious preserve of the Squire
and his family in the chancel. The Verralls had been absent from The