Page:The Autobiography of an Indian Princess.djvu/21

Rh Our days were full of interest, and some of my earliest recollections are connected with the female education movement which my father started. There was an establishment called the Asram where his followers from all different classes lived in happy disregard of caste and class. This house was quite close to Coolootola, and there I spent many happy days with my sister-in-law, then Miss Kastogir, the ideal of my girlhood.

I remember another delightful house which a friend lent to my father for his people. It was a beautiful place with two big buildings in its grounds. In these houses the Asram people came and lived for months, and we stayed there too. I have the happiest memories of this Belghuria garden-house; it always seemed to me a Paradise on earth. I was a little girl when I first went there, but I never smell a rose without recalling the vanished perfume of the roses in that wonderful garden. There were roses everywhere. They scattered my path with scented softness, and turned their flushed or sweetly pale faces to meet my wondering eyes. Roses of youth. . . the fairest. Are any others ever so treasured?

We were not allowed to pluck the fruit or flowers in the Belghuria garden, and I remember seeing cards in my father's clear handwriting fixed on the trees, which forbade us to hurt the growing loveliness.

My father had indeed a striking personality: tall and broad-shouldered, he gave one the impression