no kind father day by day to teach him and help him as other children have, but only see him for a little while by night; and we are all at the mercy of the Peri, who may any day fly quite away with the necklace and not return.' The Brahman, seeing how ill she was, said to the Chundun Rajah, 'The Ranee will die unless she can be somewhere where much care will be taken of her, for in my poor home my wife and I can do but little for her comfort. Your mother and sister are good and charitable, let her go to the palace, where they will only need to see she is ill to take care of her.'
Now it happened that in the palace courtyard there was a great slab of white marble, on which the Chundun Rajah had been wont to rest on the hot summer days; and because he used to be so fond of it, when he died his father and mother ordered that it should be taken great care of, and no one was allowed to so much as touch it. Knowing this, Chundun Rajah said to his wife, 'You are ill; I should like you to go to the palace, where my mother and sisters will take the greatest care of you. Do this, therefore—take our child and sit down with him upon the great slab of marble in the palace courtyard. I used to be very fond of it; and so now for my sake it is kept with the greatest care, and no one is allowed to so much as touch it. They will most likely see you there and order you to go away; but if you tell them you are ill, they will, I know, have pity on you and befriend you.' The Chundun Ranee did as her husband told her; placing her little boy on the great slab of white marble in the palace courtyard and sitting down herself beside him. Chundun Rajah's sister, who was looking out of the window, saw her and cried, 'Mother, there are a woman and her child resting on my brother's marble slab; let us tell them to go away.' So she ran down to the place; but when she saw Chundun Ranee and the little boy she was quite astonished. The Chundun Ranee was so fair and lovable-looking, and the baby was the image of her dead brother. Then returning to her mother, she said, 'Mother, she who sits upon the marble stone is the prettiest little lady I ever saw; and do not let us blame the poor thing, she says she is ill and weary; and the baby (I know not if it is fancy, or the seeing him on that stone) seems to me the image of my lost brother.'
At this the old Ranee and the rest of the family went out, and when they saw the Chundun Ranee they all took such a fancy to her and to the child that they brought her into the palace, and were very kind to her, and took great care of her; so that in a
