Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/308

292 issue. This was promised to be a son; but the sowcár happening to offend one of the deities, he got at last only a daughter. But he was content. Why, he thought, the gods could have given me anything or nothing! Their will be done.

That brings me to the sowcár with an only daughter. She was a lovely thing, became lovelier as she grew, and at the age of thirteen she was absolutely bewitching. She sat at the window every cool evening, dressed handsomer than Cleopatra, chewing pán sopári and slyly squirting the red nectar amongst the enthralled crowd below. The marble forehead, the silken tresses, the swan-like neck, those rainbow brows, and those coral lips sent the gallants raving mad. But who could openly aspire to her hand? Every prodigal son of an impoverished race (and of such are your gallants) was the sowcár's debtor. With what face could he ask for the hand of the sowcár's only daughter, when he had not been able to return a paltry sum of money! So Hulika (that was her name) grew in the loveliness and loneliness, till one moonlit night she espied a lovable Rajput youth, deep in her father's debt. They looked at each other, their eyes met, their hearts went out to each other, &c. &c. Huliká