garments, and to crown all she regularly received daily a number of lashes from her sister-in-law. But she bore all this with patience. The tide of public opinion gradually became more favourable, the more so when she gave out the circumstances accounting for the shoe-marks and the burning candle. But the humpbacked wretch, her tormentor, persecuted her the more until one day in a fury the latter turned upon her, and kicked her out of the house. Trembling, she fled away, not knowing where to go. Her tears rolled down in torrents, and her sobs almost choked her.
Her mother-in-law too was in despair. The poor woman, heart-broken at her daughter-in-law's misfortune and the cruelties inflicted on her by her daughter, was weighed down by griefs, and always cried for the return of her son.
In the meantime Shakti plodded on her way through woods, over mountains and across rivers, and after seven months reached the skirts of a solitary desert, so tired that she could no longer move an inch forward. She fell down and remained insensible for seven days and nights till she was awakened by the footsteps of bears and tigers, kindly ministering to her. They brought her their own food, which she did not touch, but their care and their companionship rendered her some solace, and she remained with them for some time. One morning, before dawn, a wood-cutter happened to come near her, and ravished at her unusual beauty, thought her to be the goddess of the woods, and with clasped hands begged to be told if she wanted anything of him. She replied that she only wanted him to make a hut for her. The wood-cutter at once consented, and a hut in a short time was built, but when he proposed to fetch some money for her, she borrowed from him his bill-hook, and cut a branch of a sandal tree that stood by, and gave it to him with the instruction that he should sell it to the first bidder, taking whatever was offered as the price. It was arranged also that the product of the sale should be shown her. The wood-cutter went away with the branch, and for weeks
