Page:The Autobiography of an Indian Princess.djvu/38

24 you for ever from the palace; "and weeping and lamenting, she was turned away.

My mother lived for my father and his beliefs. The world never troubled her. "You cannot impede my work, for it is God's work," were the words which formed the keynote of my father's steadfast faith, and my mother accepted it with perfect conviction. She never seemed distressed by her loss of caste, although she was left out of many a family gathering in consequence. I think my mother, however, sometimes pitied us, for we shared her fate when festivities took place in the old house, and she then made much of us in her gentle way. But we led our lives secure in the belief that the religion practised by my father was the highest. His life and his teachings were so beautiful that it was impossible not to try and live up to his ideals, and his yoke was so light that we never felt it.

In the days of my youth, as well as at the present time, I found the greatest consolation in religion. Not the fierce fanaticism which scourges the trembling soul, not the appeal of beautiful music and gorgeous vestments which attract the eye and drug the heart, but the simple and direct appeal to God as a father and a friend, the close and perfect understanding between the Creator and His creature.

We children loved the religious services, and the remembrance of my father's face as he prayed often comes back to me. I have another vivid memory of those days: sometimes, long before the servants