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Rh very face and person of Sati began to change. He had said "must" to her, and now she would show Him who and what she was, who loved and worshipped Him. So she assumed some of her great and terrible forms. She appeared to Him ten-handed, standing on a lion—Durga, the Queen and centre of the Universe. She showed herself as the gentle foster-mother of the worlds. She became the black and awful Goddess of Death. Till Mahadeva Himself trembled in Her presence and worshipped Her, in turn, as His own equal. Then she was the tender and devoted Sati once more, pleading with Him as a mortal wife with her husband. "Even as you declare," she said, "we are about to go through terrible events. But these things must be, to show mankind what a perfect wife should be. Moreover, how could harsh words hurt Her, who bears all things and beings in Her heart?"

So He yielded, and she, attended by the one old servant, Nandi, riding on their old bull, and wearing the rags of a beggar's wife, set off for the palace of her father, Duksha.

Arriving there at last, and entering the Hall of Sacrifice, she—the young and beautiful Sati of a few short years before, still young and even more beautiful, but arrayed in such strange guise—was greeted by peals of laughter from the assembled guests. They were her sisters, resplendent in silks