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18 porary solution of the problem to send Kamala to a girls' boarding school, and he broached the matter to her accordingly.

"Would you like to have some lessons, Kamala?"

She looked up at him with an expression that said plainer than words, "What can you mean?"

Ramesh discoursed at length on the benefits of edu- cation and the pleasure to be derived from study, but he might have saved his breath, for all that Kamala said was:

"All right, you teach me."

"You'll have to go to school," said Ramesh.

"To school!" exclaimed Kamala; "a big girl like me!"

Ramesh smiled at Kamala's pretensions to maturity.

"Girls much older than you go to school," he told her.

Kamala had nothing more to say and one day she drove to the school with Ramesh. It was a huge place and there seemed to be no limit to the number of girls, older or younger than Kamala.

Ramesh consigned her to the headmistress's care and was on the point of leaving when Kamala made a move as though to accompany him. "Where are you off to?" he said. "You'll have to stay here." "Aren't you staying here?" asked Kamala in a trem- ulous voice." "I can't," said Ramesh. "Then I can't stay either," said Kamala, seizing him by the hand. "Take me away with you." "Don't be silly, Kamala," said Ramesh, releasing his hand. The rebuke reduced Kamala to speechlessness; she stood as if spellbound and her face seemed to shrink away and contract. Sore at heart Ramesh hastened off, but hurry as he might he could not forget the look on that lovely, helpless, little, frightened face.