Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/43

 of her, whom she could neither love nor esteem; but from this she was saved by an early death.

In the meantime the younger daughter, Ramabai, born in 1858, was growing up, and her education devolved chiefly upon her mother. How well that mother performed her task may be guessed when we find her daughter, now learned in the lore both of the East and West, looking back to the lessons of her childhood, and recalling in reverent affection the mother "whose sweet influence and able instruction, have been the light and guide of my life."

But now a time of sorrow came for this happy little family; their hospitality to the students and pilgrims who had visited them in their jungle home had exhausted their small means and involved them in heavy debt, to pay which they were obliged to sell their land and to wander forth, homeless, on a never-ceasing pilgrimage.

For seven long years they wandered from one holy place to another, the learned Brahman holding forth to the pilgrims who gathered round him, and obtaining from their offerings a scanty subsistence for himself and his family. Then he became totally blind, and at last he died, his devoted wife following him within a very few weeks.

Ramabai was sixteen at the time of her parents' death, and under their able instruction she had already developed into what was considered to be,