Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/546

 534 TORU DUTT. The two sisters were devoted companions. Toru, the younger by eighteen months, always unconsciously took the lead both in studies and amusements, although, as their father records, there was no assumption of superi- ority on her part. " It seemed perfectly natural to Aru," he says, " to fall into the background in the presence of her sister. The love between them was always perfect." They remained until 1869 in the happy retirement of their home, studying and learning how to perform house- hold tasks, none of which they considered too mean for them. Much of their time was spent in the garden, of which no description could be given so clear or so beauti- ful as Toru's own, written a few years later : ' ' A sea of foliage girds our garden round, But not a sea of dull, unvaried green, Sharp contrasts of all colors here are seen ; The light-green, graceful tamarinds abound Amid the mangoe clumps of green profound. And palms arise, like pillars gray, between; And o'er the quiet pools the seemuls lean, Red, — red, and startling like the trumpet's sound. But nothing can be lovelier than the ranges Of bamboos to the eastward, when the moon Looks through their gaps, and the white lotus changes Into a cup of silver. One might swoon Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze On a primeval Eden, in amaze." In November, 1869, the two girls went to Europe, and visited France, Italy, and England. In France they were sent to school for the only time in their lives, spending a few months at a French pension. It must have been chiefly during this period that Toru gained her marvel- ous intimacy with the French language. English she spoke and wrote well — even wonderfully well considering her age and nationality — yet an occasional lapse betrays the foreigner. Her French, on the contrary, fluent, grace-