Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/272

256 dimpled love-gardens, her chin a sloping meadow, her neck like the swan's, her breast like the dove's, her waist like a liquid jet, her feet like moonbeams playing at hide-and-seek, and her dance must be like the peacock's! Her laugh must be a shower of mográs her voice sweet but varied, now simmering like the soft undulating bubbles in a bowl of Cyprian wine, then roaring and splashing like the giant Niagárá, now warbling like the silver flute of a Circassian houri, then thundering like the war-drum of a fierce Amazon! For months and months was the pure virgin soul saturated with sweet silly domestic legends, and thus prepared to take part in the garbás.

But those scenes are now, happily, "visions of the past." In place of the lovely, sylph-like, Hinduáni —the maiden who blushes as she smiles at her heart's happiness in having been allowed to join the street song, and whose guileless glance enthrals a crowd of fluttering butterflies—you have now the substantial matron, with her brown little progeny pulling at her skirts, whose voice is formed all for gutturals, and whom the gayest dandy refuses to ogle.