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Rh she asked me rather abruptly whether I had received any letter from him. I feared she would reprove me if she found I had not written. I therefore tried to evade her question.

"Did you have any music last evening?"

"No," she replied, "there was no good singer, Kusum and her people are still at Mymensing. Chanchal was there, she sang, but not well. I too made an attempt, but I was so worried I could not sing either."

"Why should you be worried at a dinner-party?"

"Do you know what the gossip is? People say that the engagement between you and Romanath has fallen through, and that he is to be married to Kusum. He is said to be stopping with them at Mymensing."

"Don't be depressed over a mere report," I said. "People have nothing better to do and so they gossip. Valmiki had finished the Ramayana before ever Ram was born. People have not all the genius of a Valmiki to write of great deeds, so they prattle about other people's affairs and tell stories which are seldom true."

"The report does not seem to be mere