Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/253

Rh keeps her own accounts and her own counsels. I hail from Panch Kaliani, a small possession of Nawáb Khudá Bux of Mowlághar. I was an orphan before I was born; so one might well doubt my existence. But fact is a stern thing, and so is mother-in-law, to whom at once I must return. Well, the dinner was in honour of my marrying mother-in-law's only daughter. It was an "affair of the heart," for had not mother-in-law set her heart on it? And when she sets her heart, or head, or hand, or foot on anything, there is small hope of resistance, you may be sure. Our union was arranged for just after the fury of the 1864—5 share mania had subsided into bankruptcy and suicide. One day father-in-law "was not." So mother-in-law came to Panch Kaliani a woe-begone widow to all appearance, but with small effects of large value hidden in many odd corners of her capacious motherly person. I distinctly remember this visit. My old aunt received her, and a little girl trotting behind her, at the threshold. I was busy eating raw Indian corn, but instinctively made out that the little girl was her daughter and my destiny. They lived with us for about a year, during which time our troths were plighted. Shortly after my