kitchen garden, "shopped" at
the bazaar, spun endless supplies of cotton thread on a very primitive
reel, consisting of a piece of wire with a ball of clay at the end of
it, which she twirled with one hand while she fed it with the other; and
every morning she bathed in the Hooghly, and returned home before
daybreak. Sewing and knitting were unknown arts to her,--she had no use
for either; and her washing and ironing were done by a hired dhobee.

True, it was not permitted to her to eat with her husband; when Karlee
dined she sat at the respectful orthodox distance, and waited; and if at
any time they walked out together, ayah must keep her legal place in the
rear. Saith the Shaster, "Is it not the practice of women of immaculate
chastity to eat after their lords have eaten, to sleep only after they
have slept, and to rise from sleep before them?" And again, "Let a wife
who wishes to perform sacred ablution wash the feet of her lord, and
drink the water." Nevertheless, ayah exercised an influence over her
husband as decided as it was wholesome; she did not hesitate to rebuke
him when occasion required; and in all that related to the moral
government of her children she was free to dispute his authority, and
try parental conclusions with him,--kindly but firmly. As for "the
tyrannical immuring of the Oriental female," the cruel caging of the
pretty birds who are supposed to be forever longing and pining for the
gossip of the _ghaut_ and the bustle of the bazaar, the only fault she
had to find with it was that she did not get enough of it. The
well-trained Hindoo woman has been taught to regard such seclusion as
her most charming compliment, and a precious proof of her husband's
affection; to be kept jealously veiled from the staring world, is
associated in her mind with ideas of wealth and rank,--it is the very
aristocracy of fashion.

According to the Code of Menyu, "a believer in Scripture may receive
pure knowledge even from a soodra, a lesson of the highest virtue even
from a chandala, and a woman bright as a gem even from the lowest
family." So if Karlee's wife, instead of being of the same social rank
as himself, had come of basest caste, she would still have been a
treasure. Soon after she had retired, she gently pushed into the room,
to pay his respects to the Sahib, a shy little boy of five years, whom
Karlee presented to me as the child of his only son, a bhearer in the
service of an English officer stationed