consent. Her family being reduced to this one daughter, she readily fell in with the suggestion that she should fill a mother's place beside her motherless son-in-law. She clinched the matter by saying, "Let the gossips talk if they like, my place is with my daughter and her husband."
So Braja Mohan spent the intervening days before the wedding in preparations for transferring the lady's household effects to her new home. As he desired her to accompany the wedding party on its return journey he had brought some of his womenfolk with him to render her assistance.
The wedding duly took place, but Ramesh refused to recite the sacred formula correctly, closed his eyes when the time arrived for the "auspicious look" (the privileged moment when bridegroom and bride see each other for the first time) wore a hang-dog expression and kept his mouth shut during the jesting in the bridal chamber, lay throughout the night with his back turned to the girl, and left the room as early as possible in the morning.
After all the ceremonies were over the party set out, the women in one boat, the older men in another, the bridegroom and younger men in a third; the musicians who had played at the wedding were accommodated in a fourth boat and beguiled the time by striking up various ditties and random snatches of music.
It was unbearably hot all day. The sky was cloudless but a dull haze lay over the horizon. The trees on the bank had a strange livid aspect and not a leaf stirred. The rowers were bathed in sweat. While the sun was still above the horizon the boatmen announced to Braja Mohan: "We'll have to tie the boats up now, sir; there's no place where we can moor for miles ahead."
