Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/51

Rh resolved to rebuild it and, obtaining permission, began the construction of the building which after many additions and improvements has survived as the great Imambara of to-day.

In the prosperity of Agha Motaher there was one thing lacking. He had no son. For many years he was childless and it was only in old age that a daughter was born to him. Round this only child, named Manu Jan Khanum, all his affections centred, and dying when she was only seven years old he left her all his property. A curious story is told of the device he adopted to keep the contents of his will secret during his lifetime. Presenting a massive golden amulet to the child, he told her that it would prove of immense value to her after his death but that it was on no account to be opened while he lived. The child being of such tender years, others saw that the great man's instructions were implicitly obeyed, and when the amulet was opened after his death it was found to contain his will whereby he left her all that he possessed. No provision appears to have been made for his widow, probably because she already had property of her own. She seems at once to have set up an independent household on her own account, and shortly afterwards married Haji Fazlullah, the son of Agha Fazlullah, her late husband's friend and compatriot. The only child of this marriage was the famous Haji Mahomed Moshin [sic].