Page:Deccan Nursery Tales.djvu/153

Rh dinner-time, take as usual water in your hand, but do not sip it. Then my daddy will ask you, 'Bhatji, Bhatji, why do you not sip the water in your hand?' You must reply, 'I am ready to dine if you marry me to your daughter. If you will not, I shall get up and go away.' Then he will consent to our marriage." The Brahman agreed, and he went home with the little girl, and everything happened as she had planned. To prevent the Brahman from getting up without any food, the little girl's father agreed to their marriage. When a favourable day came they were married, and when she was old enough the little girl went to her husband's house. As she went she carried off the lid of the sacred casket of King Upang. But, because it had gone, her father lost all his wealth and fell once more into the greatest poverty. His wife went to her daughter's house and asked for it back, but she refused to give it up. The wife was very angry and every day began to hate her son-in-law more and more. But for him, as she thought, the little girl would 119