"False Dawn" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story is set on an unnamed 'station', or one of the posts where the British lived during the Raj. It is something of a backwater, "nearly a day's journey" from Lahore; and at the time of the story, "just before the final exodus of the Hill-goers", i.e. at the beginning of the hot season, there are under 20 British in residence. The story concerns Saumarez, a well-paid member of the Indian Civil Service who is "popular with women". He decides to propose marriage to one of a pair of sisters, Maud (the elder) and Edith Copleigh, who do everything together: the gossip of the station is that it will be to M