osed to agree with
them, and emerged out of the chaos of mistake and confusion as a leader
of the country. When he entered the Congress Pavilion on the first day,
everybody stood up, and shouted "Hip, hip, hurrah," in a loud outlandish
voice, hearing which our Motherland reddened with shame to the root of
her ears.

In due time the Queen's birthday came, and Nabendu's name was not found
in the list of Rai Bahadurs.

He received an invitation from Labanya for that evening. When he arrived
there, Labanya with great pomp and ceremony presented him with a robe
of honour, and with her own hand put a mark of red sandal paste on the
middle of his forehead. Each of the other sisters threw round his neck a
garland of flowers woven by herself. Decked in a pink Sari and dazzling
jewels, his wife Arunlekha was waiting in a side room, her face lit up
with smiles and blushes. Her sisters rushed to her, and, placing another
garland in her hand, insisted that she also should come, and do her
part in the ceremony, but she would not listen to it; and that principal
garland, cherishing a desire for Nabendu's neck, waited patiently for
the still secrecy of midnight.

The sisters said to Nabendu: "To-day we crown thee King. Such honour
will not be done to any body else in Hindoostan."

Whether Nabendu derived any consolation from this, he alone can tell;
but we greatly doubt it. We believe, in fact, that he will become a
Rai Bahadur before he has done, and the Englishman and the Pioneer will
write heart-rending articles lamenting his demise at the proper time.
So, in the meanwhile, Three Cheers for Babu Purnendu Sekhar! Hip, hip,
hurrah--Hip, hip, hurrah--Hip, hip, hurrah.

THE RENUNCIATION

I

It was a night of full moon early in the month of Phalgun. The youthful
spring was everywhere sending forth its breeze laden with the fragrance
of mango-blossoms. The melodious notes of an untiring papiya (One of the
sweetest songsters in Bengal. Anglo-Indian writers have nicknamed it the
"brain-fever bird," which is a sheer libel.), concealed within the
thick foliage of an old lichi tree by the side of a tank, penetrated a
sleepless bedroom of the Mukerji family. There Hemanta now restlessly
twisted a lock of his wife's hair round his finger, now beat her churl
against her wristlet until it tinkled, now pulled at the chaplet of
flowers about her head, and left it hanging over hex face. His mood
was that of as evening breeze which play