Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/30

Tales of Bengal over the longed-for delicacies and sat down with her body bent and head lowered, as became an unmarried girl. She perhaps thought that if she ate unseen by others, God would not add to her already long list of sins.

The train stopped at Burdwan. Tara-sundari got down with Binu, and her parting words were, "Remember that if you only follow my advice, you will safely get her off your hands. But don't forget to bless me with uplifted arms."

To which Kalo's mother replied, "Didi, if my daughter finds her luck through you, I shall remain your bondslave for life."

A cousin of Kalo's father was a clerk in a business office in Calcutta. After much deliberation he had settled her marriage with the son of a Munsif.

The maternal uncle of the bridegroom was by profession a negotiator of marriages or, in brief, a match-maker. He made his fortune in this business. He got his fees as negotiator before the actual ceremony took place, and when the parents began their fight during the ceremony over the so-called dowry, he played the peace-maker and got something out of the bride's father (who is the defeated one by right). This able man had kindly consented to pilot Kalo across the waters of matrimony, for a sum of two thousand rupees, Kalo's patrimony, and the few ornaments Kalo's mother had left, for she had been gradually dispossessed of all ornaments in the process of marrying her four elder daughters. Her father, in his old age, again gave her mother these ornaments as a means whereby to buy Kalo a husband. What proportion of these ornaments was to adorn the inside of the able negotiator's safe and how many were actually to be used in settling the bargain, was a problem which baffled speculation.

They were able to secure the services of Panchi Rh