yet all showed themselves ready and willing to converse by signs and smiles where words were wanting. They were all overflowing with curiosity with regard to their novel surroundings, as well as animated with real gratitude to the English lady who, during her short residence of four years among them, had initiated and carried out a scheme fraught with so much benefit to them and to their children.
Such a gathering as this must do a great deal towards the breaking down of the wall of seclusion and exclusiveness with which Indian women are surrounded, and there can be but little doubt that more frequent opportunities of social intercourse with cultivated Englishwomen would prove most helpful to them. But, apart from all question of prejudice or custom, the difference of language proves an insurmountable difficulty in the way of such intercourse.
Only a very few Indian ladies can speak English, and very few English ladies, except those actually engaged in mission work, can speak any of the native languages. For it must be remembered that although those who have been some time in the country master sufficient Hindustani to be able to manage their households, yet this patois is very different from the Hindustani spoken by educated gentlemen; and this, again, is quite distinct from Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, and other languages, a knowledge of one or
