Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/254

238 poor old aunt died, leaving me and her neat little fortune to mother-in-law's care. We then came up to Bombay, where mother-in-law at once set up for a rich widow with no desire to become a woman again. She put us both to cheap schools—me and my wife—where we were happier than at home. Mother-in-law had a horror of over-feeding us, and whenever we cried from hunger she would remind us of the day when we would be wedded and free. And, in very sooth, she was making grand preparations for the day, and the repeated threat was, "The wedding once over, I'll lay down my aching bones in peace." This was an empty boast, for, as far as could be gathered from a respectful distance, the doctor was of opinion that her constitution was not predisposed to generating ossific substance. But I see the reader is looking out for a picture of mother-in-law. Well, she was no meet subject for a poetic pen. Horizontally and perpendicularly she measured the same. She had a fine head of hair, which grew in rank luxuriance, shooting out their delicate downy germs on the fallow surface of her facial region, notably on her upper lip and chin. In voice and manners she was more mannish than is usual.