Page:The Autobiography of an Indian Princess.djvu/36

22 in which we lived later on. The house itself was small, but the grounds were charming with their beautiful trees, flowers, and fruit. There we lived an open-air life among the flowers by which the air seemed always perfumed. I remember a curious thing happening there which filled me with fresh admiration for my father and helped to make me think he was more than human. The gardens at Sadhankanan were full of snakes. As I stood by a hedge of pineapple trees one day, I suddenly saw a frog hopping at a tremendous pace in the direction of the praying-ground where my father and his followers were engaged in their devotions; it was chased by a snake. The frog jumped straight on to my father's knees, and the pursuer, stopping bewildered in front of his quarry, swayed to and fro for a moment with his hood ominously raised, then turned and glided away, greatly to my relief, whereupon the frog jumped down from his sanctuary. "How wonderful he is!" I thought, "the weakest thing would be safe with him," and indeed no creature ever appealed to my father's pity in vain.

My mother loved Sadhankanan, and I remember how pretty she used to look among those beautiful surroundings. She was small, with tiny hands and feet and a wealth of dark hair, and she had a lovely voice which was heard to the best advantage in our hymns and Bengali songs. Mother's gentle influence kept us very much together. She was a woman of strong convictions, and would never countenance