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THE WRECK

had risen early to bathe before other people were stirring.

"You look like a Bengali, you do" she went on.

"I am a Bengali" said Kamala.

"What are you doing lying here?"

"I started off for Benares. Late at night I felt sleepy so I lay down here."

"Did you ever hear the like? Going to Benares on foot! Well, you had better get on board that barge. I'll be along as soon as I've had my bath."

The old lady bathed and then joining Kamala launched forth into an account of herself and her errand. She was related to the Sidhu Babu in Ghazipur, one of the members of whose family had just been married with great pomp and circumstance. Her own name was Nabinkali and her husband's name was Mukundalal Datta ; they were Kayasthas by caste, natives of Bengal, but they had been residing for some time in Benares. They had not been invited to their kinsfolk's house for the wedding but had taken boat to Ghazipur in the hope that Sidhu Babu might after all find quarters for them. The mistress of the house had, however, regretted her inability to offer them hospitality. "You know, my dear," she had said to Nabinkali, "my husband is very delicate; ever since he was a child he has had to live on special diet. We keep a cow in the house and churn its milk into but- ter; out of the butter we make ghi, and with the ghi we prepare luchis for him. A cow like that can't be fed on any fodder that comes along " and so forth and so on.

"What's your name?" she asked after this recital. "Kamala."

Nabinkali. "I see you're wearing iron bangles; your husband is alive then?"

"He disappeared the day after our wedding." Nabinkali. "Well I never ! You look quite young

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