Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/159

Rh wives to their husbands. All who know the orthodox Hindu Zenana will have pathetic instances in mind of a loyalty which dignifies all womanhood. Nor often however, I hope, is loyalty put to such severe test as with the little lady whom I found imprisoned in a fortress in Northern India.

Her story was interesting—she was the daughter of a King, and educated beyond ordinary. “She shall be as a son to me,” had said her Father, and he taught her to read and write and figure, and rumour said that even the local magazine was edited from behind the Purdah. When she was of an age to marry, her family Priest went a horoscopical tour to secure her a husband.

At Benares he met the family Priest of another Raj in search of a bride, and the two Priests agreed to end their wanderings, and accommodate each other. But alas! the bridegroom’s priest had not revealed that his patron was half-witted, nor that the Ministers of the estate were in negotiation for a lady from among themselves. So, on her wedding day the Raj candidate learnt both that she was wedded to an idiot, and that she had a co-wife.