Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/19

Rh nights and never feel it. I was not like this always." The girl, who found herself a stranger in the company of her fellow-passengers, felt so very shy that a little occasional smile was all the response she made to the familiarities of the old lady.

There were two healthy-looking girls in blue silk jackets, which did not quite match their dark complexion, and they were engaged in an endless discussion of the sorrows of their young lives. They were perhaps finding some solace in thus pouring out their secrets before an assembly of unknown faces. The old lady, who felt much interested in their discussion of how one had lost her mother and another her sister, and how one was not loved by her husband and persecuted by the mother-in-law, suddenly lost all interest in the girl who wore stockings, I mean the school-girl, and asked one of them, "I say, little girl, do you hear? Why haven't you put on your ornaments? You are married and your husband is living; and you are none too old; then why such neglect? What is wrong?"

The elder one of the two answered: "There is no end of troubles, mother, but what is the use of recounting them? I had been to my father's house on the occasion of the marriage of my niece, but, as ill luck would have it, had half my ornaments stolen. My mother-in-law, when she heard about it, rebuked me so that one would think I myself was the thief. But why should I blame her? Who would not resent the loss of the gold obtained by selling her son? I should not expect a treat of candies from her. That is why I have taken an oath not to put on the remaining ornaments again, as I feel the abuse showered on my father cut into my heart when they rest against my skin."

The old lady dug her knees carefully into the soft flesh of the school-girl who wore her hair in a novel and Rh