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THE WRECK

had offered hospitality to strangers but Haribhabhini was hardly prepared to receive a married couple. "Bless me, we've nowhere to put them!" she ex-claimed.

"You had better see them first," said her husband, "then we can decide about accommodation for them. Where's my Saila?"

"She's bathing the child."

Chakrabartti then ushered Kamala into his wife's presence.

Kamala saluted Haribhabhini with the respect due to her years. The old lady in her turn touched Kamala on the chin, then kissed her own finger and remarked nto her husband, "Don't you think her very like our Bidhu?" — Bidhu being their elder daughter who lived with her husband in Allahabad.

Chakrabartti was secretly amused at the compari- son. As a matter of fact there was not the slightest resemblance between Bidhu and Kamala, but Hari- bhabhini would never admit that any other girl was her own daughter's superior in beauty or attainments. Their other daughter Sailaja lived with her parents and was liable to be worsted in a contest of looks, hence the mother kept the flag flying by instituting comparisons with the absent one only.

"We're very pleased to have you," Haribhabhini went on, "but I'm afraid you won't be very comfort- able. Our new house is under repair at present and it's all we can do to squeeze in here." True enough, Chakrabartti did own a small house in the bazar which happened to be undergoing repairs at the moment; but it was not the sort of place which they could ever use as a residence nor had they ever contemplated doing so!

Chakrabartti chuckled over his wife's fib, but he did not give her away. "If you objected to discomfort I should never have brought you here," he remarked to

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