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Miss Cayley's adventures (1899) by Grant Allen
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_MISS CAYLEY'S ADVENTURES_ (1899), ch. 9

by Grant Allen

published by Grant Richards

IX

THE ADVENTURES OF THE MAGNIFICENT MAHARAJAH

OUR arrival at Bombay was a triumphal entry. We
were received like royalty. Indeed, to tell you
the truth, Elsie and I were beginning to get just a
leetle bit spoiled. It struck us now that our
casual connection with the Ashurst family in its
various branches had succeeded in saddling us like
the Lady of Burleigh, 'with the burden of an honour
unto which we were not born.' We were everywhere
treated as persons of importance; and, oh dear, by
dint of such treatment we began to feel at last
almost as if we had been raised in the purple. I
felt that when we got back to England we should
turn up our noses at plain bread and butter.

Yes, life has been kind to me. Have your
researches into English literature ever chanced to
lead you into reading Horace Walpole, I wonder?
That polite trifler is fond of a word which he
coined himself--'Serendipity.' It derives from the
name of a certain happy Indian Prince Serendip,
whom he unearthed (or invented) in some obscure
Oriental story; a prince for whom the fairies or
the genii always managed to make everything
pleasant. It implies the faculty, which a few of
us possess, of finding whatever we want turn up
accidentally at the exact right moment. Well, I
believe I must have been born with serendipity in
my mouth, in place of the proverbial silver spoon,
for wherever I go, all things seem to come out
exactly right for me.

The Jumna, for example, had hardly heaved