act rashly; I
will first try her with my test. Then approaching her with a polite
salutation, he said: 'My dear, are you clever enough to make a good
dinner out of this bag of rice;' Without answering a word, she looked
significantly at her old nurse, and taking the rice from his hand,
signed him to sit down on a terrace close by; and sat down herself
near him. Then, first spreading out the rice in the, sun that it might
be quite dry, she rubbed it gently between her hands, so as to get off
the husk unbroken, and giving it to the nurse, she said: 'Take this to
some goldsmith; they use it when prepared in this way for polishing
their gold, and you will get a few pence for it--with them buy a
little firewood, a few cheap dishes, and an earthen pipkin, and bring
also a wooden mortar with a long pestle.' On this errand the old woman
departed, and soon returned, bringing the things required.

"Then the girl put the rice into the mortar, and very gracefully
moving the pestle up and down, separated the rice thoroughly from the
remaining particles of husk and awns; which she carefully winnowed
away.

"After this she washed the rice thoroughly, and the old woman having
meanwhile lighted a fire and placed the pipkin full of water on it,
she threw the rice into the water as soon as it boiled, in such a
manner that the grains lay loose and separate. When they began to
swell and burst, she took the pot from the fire, which she raked
together, and set it with the lid downwards near the embers, first
carefully draining off the rice liquor, and stirring the grains
several times with a spoon to prevent their sticking together.

"After this she put out the fire by throwing water on it, and taking
the charcoal, sent the old woman to sell it, and with the money to
procure some herbs, ghee, curds, tamarind fruit, spices, salt,
myrobalan, and sesamum oil. When these things were brought, she mixed
the myrobalan, finely pounded, with salt, and desired the nurse to
give it with the sesamum oil to the young brahman, and tell him to go
and bathe and anoint himself; and he having received these things,
went to bathe.

"When he was returned and comfortably seated, she gave him to drink
rice liquor, mixed with spices and cooled by fanning, and he was much
refreshed by it; afterwards, soup made with some of the liquor, a few
spoonfuls of rice, butter, and spices; and, lastly, the rest of the
rice mixed with curds, buttermilk, and several condim