away; and all we children liked to hear him. I was very fond of singing. I had a good voice when I was young, and my father used to be so fond of making me sing, and I often sang to him that Calicut song about the ships sailing on the sea[1] and the little wife watching for her husband to come back, and plenty more that I forget now; and my father and brothers would be so pleased at my singing, and laugh and say, 'That girl can do anything.' But now my voice is gone, and I didn't care to sing any more since my son died, and my heart been so sad.
In those days there were much fewer houses in Poona than there are now, and many more wandering gipsies, and such like. They were very troublesome, doing nothing but begging and stealing, but people gave them all they wanted, as it was believed that to incur their ill-will was very dangerous. It was not safe even to speak harshly of them. I remember one day, when I was quite a little girl, running along by my mother's side, when she was on her way to the bazaar, we happened to pass the huts of some of these people; and I said to her, 'See, mother, what nasty, dirty people those are; they live in such ugly little houses, and they look as if they never combed their hair nor washed.' When I said this my mother turned round quite sharply and boxed my ears, saying, 'Because God has given you a comfortable home and good parents, is that any reason for you to laugh at others who are poorer and less happy?'—'I meant no harm,' I said, and when we got home I told my father what my mother had done, and he said to her, 'Why did you slap the child?' She answered, 'If you want to know, ask your daughter why I punished her. You will then be able to judge whether I was right or not.' So I told my father what I had said about the gipsies, and when I told him, instead of pitying me, he also boxed my ears very hard. So that was all I got for telling tales against my mother!
But they both did it, fearing if I spoke evil of the gipsies and were not instantly punished some dreadful evil would befall me.
It was after my granny that I was named 'Anna Liberata.' She died after my father, and when I was eleven years old. Her eyes were quite bright, her hair black, and her teeth good to the last. If I'd been older then, I should have been able to remember more of her stories. Such a number as she used to tell! I'm afraid my sister would not be able to remember any of them. She has had much trouble; that puts those sort of things out of
