Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/85

Rh food nor drink. The lady of the house disputed a debt claimed by him in the name of an ancestor. She bade him sue, but he, wise man, preferred this method. At the moment he was only just alive, and his wits seemed to have preceded him to the new genesis. We called him back, with kind words and chinking of money under the trunk of the Luck-Bringer himself. It was the money I think that reached him on the Border Land. He laughed for joy and wept many salt tears into his first spare meal of rice and watery pulse; but the family borrowed more money to make a great feast because the house was saved from a Curse!

Another variety of compelling your desire is the burning of a cow or an old woman. While, for a woman, the simplest way is the time-honoured custom of sulking. Early Indian domestic architecture provides for this. There was always a sulking-room in the “Inside” (compare boudoir), and here sat the woman who insisted on her own way; and here no doubt came husband or father with gift of shawl or toe-ring to release her. …

My wise ones tell me many stories as we sit on the roof in the hour between the