Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/45

Rh “Then tell the rest, Kamal.” But Kamal was better occupied.

“And how calls the horse, my son? and how the dog? and the cat? and sheep? And,” roguishly—“and how the great grandmother when in anger?” Till she of many years claimed Nagendra as her fee for such impertinence and Kamala was forced to tell her tale.

“And how should story end which wails no dirge for death of wife?” said Kamala, hotly. For opinion is but experience crystallized. “When Durga’s soul left her body thus early, it wandered to the mountains of snow, and finding on the threshold of sense, the empty house of a new-born babe, it entered it.”

Uma was the name by which its parents chose to know the child; and Uma grew strong and beautiful, gentle and good, with no memory of Durga the Ten-Headed. … And, one day when she had come to her woman’s estate in our kingdom of life, and was playing with her waiting-woman among the swans beside the lotus-beds, an aged Priest-man appeared before her, and falling at her feet, said, “Durga Mother, thy Lord of