Page:The Slave Girl of Agra.djvu/254

 left no son, they told me, and thy husband has succeeded him as Zemindar of Debipur?"

"That is so, sister. He, too, comes from a distant branch of the Debipur House, and there was some talk of my father adopting him as a son, for such is the usual custom among the Zemindars of my race. But my mother loved me greatly and would not part with me, and so my parents gave me in marriage to him."

"Thou speakest sweetly, dear sister, and I see thy pure, innocent soul in thy gentle words. Mayst thou be happy in life, as thou art born to wealth and wedded to worth. Troubles have never crossed thy path, nor long wanderings, as has been my fate."

"Nay, troubles we have had, sister, and wanderings too. For my father lost his estate for a while during the wars between the Moguls and Afghans, and was in exile when I was born. Two years after my birth we came to Birnagar."

"Ha! Didst thou say Birnagar? Why, I have heard of that estate too—from—perhaps from my slave girls. Is that estate far from Debipur?"

"The two estates adjoin each other, but they have been rival estates for many generations, and there have been wars and dissensions which have kept them apart."

"And sometimes alliances, too, which have drawn them together; is not that so, my sweet sister?" asked the Begum, with an arch smile.

"Surely thy slave girls keep thee well informed, sister Begum. What thou sayest is true."

"My slave girls are stupid, dear sister. But I tried to know something of this Province and its Chiefs