if he is only well paid for it. Sorely some great crimes must have been committed in former births, or else daughters would never be born into a Kulin's family!' 'My dear,' said another woman to her, 'you have finished drawing water now: come along, you ought not to gossip like this when you come to the riverside. Why, your husband is alive, whereas the man I was married to was actually dying, with his feet in the Ganges, when the ceremony of marriage was performed! What possible good will it do to discuss the religious duties of Kulin Brahmans? The secrets of the heart are best kept locked up in the breast.'"
"It grieved me to listen to the talk of the women, and the words of Beni Babu, which he spoke at the time of our departure, recurred to my mind. Then on landing at the Barnagore ghât, there was a good deal of trouble in trying to get a palki, but not a single bearer was to be had, and the time for the ceremony was fast slipping away. We had to proceed as best we could. After a good deal of floundering about in the mud, we reached the house of the bride's father. How can I describe to you the figure that the master presented after he had tumbled down in the road? we had only to put him upon an ox, for him to have appeared a veritable Mahadeva, and we might have presented Thakchacha and Bakreswar as Nandi and Bhringi in attendance upon him. I had heard rumours that there would be a large distribution of presents, but on getting up to the great hall, I saw that there was to be nothing of the sort: it was all a delusion, and another illustration of the old proverb, -- 'Sand has fallen into the goor.' Thakchacha, seeing his hopes destroyed, was glaring around him everywhere, and strutting insolently about. I could not help smiling to myself, but I thought it would be safer not to express my real sentiments. The bridegroom had meanwhile
