o face again. But this time the ill-starred dancing-skirt
and bells had been locked away; and in their stead we saw the silken
jacket, the spangled pale-blue sari, covered by a diaphanous black veil,
like a thin cloud half-veiling the summer heavens, the necklace of pearls
round the olive pillar of her throat, and above them the calm face and the
wealth of dark hair that scorned all artificial adornment. There she sat in
her own house, singing to two rich Arabs and a subordinate agent of one of
the greatest rulers of Asia, while behind her Mimi, aged two years,--the
legacy of a dead affection, crooned and tried to clap her small hands in
rythm with her mother's song. And in the pauses of her singing, while the
musicians tightened their bows and the silver "pan-box" was passed round to
her Indian-guests, she lifted a little way, a very little way the curtain
of the past.

"Yea, Saheb, you have rightly spoken. I come of a good family, and as a
child I was sent to school in Calcutta and learned your English tongue.
When I grew to girlhood I determined to study medicine and serve the women
of my faith as a doctor. But barely had I commenced the preliminary lessons
of compounding when the trouble came upon our house, and my sister and I
were brought away from the old home to Bombay and bidden to find the
wherewithal to support those to whom we owed respect and affection. Saheb,
with us the word of near relations is law, and their support a sacred duty.
What could we, gently-bred Mahomedan girls, do in a strange city? We had
always liked singing and had taken lessons in our home; and it seemed that
herein lay the only chance of supporting ourselves and others. Therefore,
not without hesitation, not without tears, we bade adieu to the 'pardah' of
our people and cast the pearls of our singing before the public. Thus has
it been since that day. My sister by good-hap has married well and regained
the shelter of the curtain: but I am still unwed and must sing until the
end comes."

"How can I seek help of my grandsire? Have I not disgraced his name by
adopting this life? And were I mean enough to ask his favour, would he not
first insist that I become once more 'pardahnashin'? I cannot live again
behind the screen, for too long have I been independent. The filly that has
once run free cares not afterwards for the stall and bridle. It has been an
evil mistake, Saheb, but one not of my making. I sometimes loathe the
lights, the tins