The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: when their husbands inquired what on earth they had been talking of,
it usually transpired that they had found an infinite amount to say
about nothing. It was a little worrying to hear Colonel Chichele
and Major Harbottle describe their wives as 'pals,' but the fact
could not be denied, and after all we were in the Punjab. They were
pals too, but the terms were different.
People discussed it according to their lights, and girls said in
pretty wonderment that Mrs. Harbottle and Mrs. Chichele were like
men, they never kissed each other. I think Judy prescribed these
conditions. Anna was far more a person who did as the world told
her. But it was a poor negation to describe all that they never
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