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(notes edited by John McGivering) |
notes on the text  |
Publication
The story was published in the Civil and Military Gazette on November 20th 1886, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
The Story
Pluffles, a callow young subaltern, has fallen for the charms of a fascinating and predatory Older Woman, Mrs Reiver, of whom there is 'nothing good except it was her dress'. Mrs Hauksbee, who loathes Mrs Reiver, and knows that Pluffles is engaged to a girl in England, decides to rescue him. She wins his heart, talks to him like a mother, and sees him safely off Home to be married. This is the second story about Mrs Hauksbee, and shows her in a rather better light than "Three - and an Extra".
