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Rh At these words Madana repented of his conduct, returned home and behaved with due regard to his father and mother. Soon after, with their permission, he left them, took leave of his wife Prabhavati, and started for a far country. His wife dutifully mourned his absence for some days, when at last her friends advised her to stop her lamentations, and try and find some one to console her solitude. What they said was this: "A father, a husband, are all very well as long as they are alive, but when they are both dead, or as good as dead, it is a great mistake to waste one's life and youth in tears and lamentations. So though you have lost your husband you have not lost your youth and vigour, and you should make the best of both."

Prabhavati thought there was something in this advice, and proceeded to carry it out without delay, by falling in love with a certain Ganachandra. In fact, she went on in such a way that the parrot was moved to rebuke her severely and said: "Really! such behaviour is too bad!" and a good deal more to the same effect.

Prabhavati was so angry at the parrot's presuming to advise her, that she intended to tell her servants to wring the parrot's neck as soon as she was gone; before starting, however, she waited a