young man he was!
His aquiline nose, his fair complexion, his brilliant eyes, his
lithe form, his intelligent and vivacious expression,--all these
irresistibly attracted me to him."

"Ha!" said Bhima Gandharva, as if he were clearing his throat. He
grasped my arm: "Come, I thought I saw the young man's father standing
near the door as we passed out. I wonder if _he_ will irresistibly
attract you?" He made me retrace my steps to the banker's office:
"There he is."

He was the image of the son in feature, yet his face was as repulsive
as his son's was beautiful: the Devil after the fall, compared with
the angel he was before it, would have presented just such a contrast.

"They are two Vallabhacharyas," said my companion as we walked away.
"You know that the trading community of India, comprehended under
the general term of Baniahs, is divided into numerous castes, which
transmit their avocations from father to son and preserve themselves
free from intermixture with others. The two men you saw are probably
on some important business negotiation connected with Bombay or the
west of India; for they are Bhattias, who are also followers of
the most singular religion the world has ever known--that of the
Vallabhacharya or Maharaja sect. These are Epicureans who have quite
exceeded, as well in their formal creeds as in their actual practices,
the wildest dreams of any of those mortals who have endeavored to
make a religion of luxury. They are called Vallabhacharyas, from
_Vallabha_, the name of their founder, who dates from 1479, and
_acharya_, a "leader." Their _Pushti Marga_, or eat-and-drink
doctrine, is briefly this: In the centre of heaven (_Gouloka_) sits
Krishna, of the complexion of a dark cloud, clad in yellow, covered
with unspeakable jewels, holding a flute. He is accompanied by Roaha,
his wife, and also by three hundred millions of Gopis, or female
attendants, each of whom has her own palace and three millions of
private maids and waiting-women. It appears that once upon a time two
over-loving Gopis quarreled about the god, and, as might be expected
in a place so given over to love, they fell from heaven as a
consequence. Animated by love for them, Krishna descended from heaven,
incarnated himself in the form of Vallabha (founder of the sect), and
finally redeemed them. Vallabha's descendants are therefore all gods,
and reverence is paid them as such, the number of them being now sixty
or seventy. To God belong