applauded her cleverness, and she returned home with her reputation fully established.
Story XVI
THERE is a certain town in which lived a merchant who had a wife called Mugdhikâ.. She was a flighty and self-willed kind of person. Her husband was very much dissatisfied with her behaviour, and called together a family council complaining that she was always going out at night. They charged her with this and she retorted that they had made a great mistake, for it was her husband who was always out at night. So after some discussion they came to the following conclusion: " Whichever of you," they said, " after this is first out at night is to be considered the guilty party." Mugdhikâ, in spite of this decision, took the first opportunity of going out, and her husband finding that she was not in the house locked the door and went to bed. Presently she came home and knocked, but her husband refused to let her in, so she took a large stone and threw it with a splash into the tank, and then went and waited behind the door. Her husband heard the
