Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/25

Rh Calcutta, find a suitable name for your daughter; for, be sure, the modern young man will never marry a Kalidasi or a Jagadamba, or a Katyayani, or any one with a name smelling of the days of your great-grandma."

To change the topic, Binu asked the young girl who wore leather shoes like men, the school-girl to wit, "What is your name, please; it must be something very charming and sweet?"

The girl smiled faintly as she answered, "Sobha."

But man is a creature of his tendencies, and so Tara-didi at once used this new piece of information in aid of her own philanthropic endeavours. "Did you hear that?" she said to the widow, "Give her some such name. Either Sobha, Bibha, or Abha. I have borne no less than eight daughters. They were my own, but for the sake of truth, I must admit that not all of them were like so many golden statues. Still, that did not prevent my naming them, Swarnalata, Kanaklata, etc."

Kalo was hitherto ignorant of the wonderful virtues of a name. So she took this opportunity to turn her head towards Sobha to have a look at one who had so much of that wealth. Her eyes were overflowing with admiration, which was but ill-expressed; for from her childhood she had been drilled into the habit of gazing vacantly without any definite meaning. Her soul felt shy and afraid to look out of the windows of its cage.

This movement on the part of Kalo, at once brought into prominence her wide forehead, from whose surface every single hair had been carefully drawn away upwards, and Tara-sundari lost no time to notice this particular point and to express her opinion on it. "My goodness, what a shameful way to treat one's hair! As she is, she is none too charming, and if you do her hair like that and Rh