Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/13

 My father smiled to see that these were indeed newly enriched folk, with the manners of their kind. The palanquin was richly lined, over it was a silver canopy, the poles ended in grinning shark's heads in silver. The servant girl who had accompanied it was dressed in silk apparel, and had a fine gold bead on her necklet. Four stalwart black-bearded up-country retainers acted as escort.

My father, Hara Mohan Datta, was a gentleman by descent. He laughed and said, "My dearest Indira, I can keep you no longer. You must go now, but you must come back soon to see your old father. Mind you do not let all this magnificence make you conceited. In our homely Bengali phrase, do not smile at a finger posing as a banana tree!"

So it was that I was at last on my way to my future home. My father-in-law's house at Manoharpur and my father's house at Mahespur were some twenty miles apart. So I rose early