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 married life or through premature widowhood to the jealous seclusion of four dull walls. Any Hindoo woman, if she holds to the tenets of her fathers, is exposed to shame if she sees the face even of her husband's brother, and must then veil her own face, and it would be asking too much that she should be expected to understand that Englishmen and women should sit, walk, ride and mingle together in social intercourse, without shame or embarrassment.

The other passage is put into the mouth of a jemadar, once a bearer, who says that he has obtained his situation by the influence of a planter's wife, "who wrote one letter to the Magistrate," and "who never danced with any other person but the Magistrate." I have already explained this appears to me to be merely an allusion to the very common practice of sending letters of recommendation in favour of old servants to official personages who have places at their disposal. I believe honestly that the practice has long existed and will continue to exist. But where 1 have heard, as I have heard, of any lady sending letters of this kind, it has never occurred to me to see any evil design therein, and as to the asserted partiality of an Englishman for one particular partner in a dance, it surely would be a far-fetched and uncharitable construction which would attach thereto any hidden or disgraceful meaning.

These are the only two passages which I think it necessary to notice, as they have been much talked of, and misunderstood, and as they relate to points to which society, if not possessed of accurate information, or if not furnished with the actual words used in the drama, is likely to be sensitive. In a third passage a Magistrate is simply described as writing a letter to a lady in the presence of her husband. But I believe that most persons who know India and its people, will read all this as I have done. I still think my reading is the correct one. Should I be mistaken, or even though I be right, should others think differently, my sorrow for this unfortunate publication will be increased by the thought that an offensive meaning (which I should be among the first to reprehend, if applied by others to any of my country-women) had been attached to expressions which I believed and, still in my conscience believe, to be free from all such gross imputations. It has been stated in a paper published at Bombay that I have gone about boasting of