women's quarter. There we saw a young child-widow, very fair
and sweet and gentle, but quieter than a child should be; for she is a
widow accursed. Her mind is keen--she wants to learn; but why should a
widow learn, they say, why should her mind break bounds? She lives in a
tiny mud-built house, in a tiny mud-walled yard; she may not go out
beyond those walls, then why should she _think_ beyond? But she is
better off than most, for she lives with her mother, who loves her, and
her father makes a pet of her, and so she is sheltered more or less from
the cruel scourge of the tongue.

There is another in the next courtyard; she is not sheltered so. She
lives with her mother-in-law, and the world has lashed her heart for
years; it is simply callous now. There she sits with her chin in her
hand, just hard. Years ago they married her, an innocent, playful little
child, to a man who died when she was nine years old. Then they tore her
jewels from her, all but two little ear-rings, which they left in pity
to her; and this poor little scrap of jewellery was her one little bit
of joy. She could not understand it at first, and when her pretty
coloured seeleys were taken away, and she had to wear the coarse white
cloth she hated so, she cried with impotent childish wrath; and then she
was punished, and called bitter names,--the very word _widow_ means
bitterness,--and gradually she understood that there was something
the matter with her. She was not like other little girls. She had
brought ill-fortune to the home. She was accursed.

It is true that some are more gently dealt with, and many belong to
Castes where the yoke of Custom lies lighter; for these the point of the
curse is blunted, there is only a dull sense of wrong. But in all the
upper Castes the pressure is heavy, and there are those who feel
intensely, feel to the centre of their soul, the sting of the shame of
the curse.

"It is fate," says the troubled mother; "who can escape his fate?" "It
is sin," says the mother-in-law; and the rest of the world agrees.
"'Where the bull goes, there goes its rope.' 'Deeds done in a former
birth, in this birth burn.'"

Much of the working of the curse is hidden behind shut doors. I saw a
young widow last week whose mind is becoming deranged in consequence of
the severity of the penance she is compelled to perform. When, as they
put it, "the god of ill-fortune seizes her," that is, when she becomes
violent, she is quietly "removed