Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/47

10 told him to sit down, and thinking that it would not be proper to give the Brahman boy only a little water with nothing to eat, gave him some murki and some water. She gazed at him as he greedily devoured the murki, and asked him whether he had eaten any food that day. Thakurdas replied, 'No, mother, I have had nothing to eat to-day till now.' Thereupon the kind-hearted woman told him to desist from drinking water, and to wait a little. She at once hastened to a milkman's shop, and came back with some curd, which she graciously placed before Thakurdas, and presenting him with some more murki, pressed him to make a belly-ful meal of the curd and murki. After the meal had been over, the benevolent woman, by kind and affectionate words, drew out from Thakurdas all particulars of his circumstances, and at last told him to come to her, whenever he would be in want of food.

"Henceforth whenever he felt the pangs of hunger, and could not procure food in the daytime, he used to go to the kind-hearted woman, and she was always very glad to feed him heartily in the manner related before.

"Some time after this, Thakurdas, with the help of his protector, secured a berth worth two