Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/100

88 months later. During the cold season, or at least a part of it, they live in Calcutta, occupying a fine house in the suburb of Alipore. Here they entertain a great deal; and their handsome reception-rooms are furnished in every respect like those of an English house. Those, however, occupied by themselves and the members of their family are much more simply furnished, and in the privacy of these apartments the Maharani retains most of the ordinary social habits of her country. While retaining a not unnatural preference for the customs in which she has been brought up, she shows a wonderful aptitude for conforming to foreign ways when more advisable, and as a hostess she is both popular and successful. Her parties and receptions are crowded by English people, but though a few members of the Brahmo-Somaj may also be seen at them, native gentlemen are as a rule conspicuous by their absence.

The explanation is not difficult to find. There are still very few Indian gentlemen of good position who have adopted in any degree the Western idea of allowing free social intercourse between men and women. Some of them have learnt that, it being the accepted principle in European society, English ladies who appear in public are only following the custom of their race, and are therefore entitled to be treated with respect, but they have not advanced sufficiently to be able to apply the same principle to native