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12 exact I cannot tell. And after all is there really any one who is the loser by this uncertainty? The loss is neither mine nor the reader's. If the want of knowledge of these three hundred and sixty-five days would shorten or lengthen a man's life to that extent, it would be a different matter. But as it is, man may forget time, but time will never forget man. My age will be the same whether I realise it or not, and it does not matter much to the reader if I am twenty instead of nineteen. Let me assume then that I am nineteen in order to settle the question finally. I am still a spinster. This may be a source of surprise to one who understands this land of ours; but it is gradually changing, for are there not many maids unmarried in this advanced age who count as many years as I do? And if a surprise it be I have a still greater in store for my readers. I, a Hindu maiden, knew love before I entered wedlock. I loved a man without even expecting him to become my husband.

I do not remember my mother; I lost her in my infancy. But my father's devotion offered compensation, and I loved him with a fondness greater than which no child