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Rh ceremony and come to dine at my house? Or, if a daughter is born, what good Brahmin will marry his son to her? If I return home now, who will believe that I have not fallen off from my religion? How shall I shew my face there?”

“What was in your destiny, has come to pass,” said Sundari, “that cannot be undone. You shall have to suffer a little all your time, yet you will have the satisfaction of living in your own home.”

“For what happiness? What hopes of happiness have I, that I shall return home and suffer so much misery? I have neither father, mother, friend——”

“Why, you have got your husband, else for whom is the life of a woman ?"

“You know all—”

“Yes, I do know all. I know that of all the sinners in this world, there is not one greater than you. The husband, the like of whom rarely falls to the lot of a woman in this world, your mind is not satisﬁed with the love of such a husband. And why ?-—because he does not know how to fondle his wife like children who fondle their dolls in their mimic play-house; and why? — because the Creator has not made him a buffoon tricked out in tinsel tawdries—He has made him a man. Your husband is pious and learned, you are a wicked sinner— how can you like him? You are blind of the blind, and that is why you cannot understand that the love which he bears you, is rare in a woman’s life. As the reward of great virtue in your antecedent birth, you have