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 felt a growing esteem for his quiet, manly virtues, his patient work and endurance. She knew of his high descent, of which he never spoke, and she felt within her a desire to see him rise to the rank which his birth, his character and his destiny seemed to have marked out for him.

But Hemlata was more perplexed when Noren came to see her, as he did more often; and her young face was sometimes suffused with crimson when she heard his abrupt and often incoherent talk. She, who had played so often with him on the river bank when he was a child, stood bashful and half-veiled before the ardent young man. And yet she loved to listen to his voice, and lent a willing ear to his fervid and ambitious schemes which she could not grasp. Unconsciously, and by an irresistible attraction, the poor girl was drawn towards him with a glow of ardour on his noble face and a light of glory in his sparkling eyes.

Hemlata's mother, with a woman's instinct, understood the meaning of Noren's young ardour, and secretly watched the impulse which was growing strong within him. But, from the first day on which she had spoken to her husband about Noren and Hemlata, she had made no progress in her schemes. Nobo Kumar cared not to thwart her design openly, and he avoided the subject by his dogged resolution not to speak of her daughter's wedding till Debipur was won. Nevertheless, she gathered from some dark hints which fell from him that he was averse to the union between the two Houses on which she had set her heart. With a woman's insight she half suspected that he had a