Page:The Autobiography of an Indian Princess.djvu/56

 happy home life continued undisturbed until I was thirteen. Indian girls of that age are more advanced than their Western sisters, but I was still very much a child, thanks to my parents.

My father's name is for ever associated with the Civil Marriage Act, as it was entirely owing to his exertions that the Government passed this wise measure fixing the marriageable age of men and girls at eighteen and fourteen respectively.

The fairy prince in my romance was the young Nripendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur, Maharajah of Cooch Behar, who had been a ward of the Government since his infancy, and carefully educated to be a model ruler. Colonel Haughton wrote: "Ever since I have become Commissioner for Cooch Behar, the honour of the young Maharajah, his future happiness, and the welfare of the State have been my anxious care."

This Indian prince's family records show that he was descended from one of the oldest ruling families in the country. According to popular tradition his