Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/124

 place where the ceremony was to be performed, he carefully tied her eyes with a cloth, so that she could not see. Hiranmayi asked, "What is this, my father?"

Dhana Das replied, "Such are the holy man's orders. Do you do as I tell you. Now recite the prescribed formulæ mentally."

The girl made no reply, and her father led her by the hand to the room prepared for the marriage.

If she had been able to see when she arrived there, she would have noticed that her future husband was also blindfolded. There was no one present save the guru, the officiating priest, and the girl's father. Bride and bridegroom being both blind-folded, the ceremony of causing them to take the first auspicious look at one another after marriage was perforce omitted.

After the completion of the ceremony, the guru-deva addressed the young couple. "You are now wedded to another, but have not seen one another. The sole object of this ceremony has been to relieve the bride of the reproach of