_P.S._--Since the above was written, my Wisest of the Wise has arrived at her Sunset hour. Her going was very beautiful and very simple: shortly before her time was come, she left the Town where she dwelt, for the holy city of Death. She was no worse and no better than she had been any day the year and more, but she knew, apparently. Then, one morning, she said quite calmly to her disciples, after the ceremonial bath and _pooja_, “This is the last time I shall worship in this house” (her body); “now, waste no time in regret, let us talk the things we should be sorry to have left unsaid.”... And all that day the faithful gathered about her, and she expounded the scriptures with an insight unequalled even by herself. She ate nothing--“Why prop up the house that is tumbling?” At night she asked to be taken down to the Sacred River--a Hindu dies with her feet in the water; and there she sat among her friends on the stone steps of the Ghat, claiming no support, no physical comfort, now silent, now setting afloat some beautiful thought in words that will always live for those who loved her ... and then just in the gray mystery of the dawn hour, “It is right,” she said, and fell back.... They put her into a boat and took her across to the Ghat of the Soul’s departure, and here they slipped her gently into the Stream ... for that is all the burial service for one who is holy. Later, her disciples came to me with faces radiant. “She has attained,” they said. “Yes!” said the Holy Man, Truth-named, “she has attained in that she elected not to attain;” and then they told me that, sitting that night of stars and dark spaces by the River of Death, one had said to her: “You are blessed; you have attained.” And she made answer: “Nay! it was given me to attain; but I put it aside, desiring re-birth once more for the sake of the work, to which I have put my hand, here among you.” “And a man’s future is even as his desires. That is true truth, Miss Sahib!” concluded the Wise man, Truth-named. VII THE WISE MAN--“TRUTH-NAMED” It was at the house of my Wise Woman that first I saw him. He wore a straight long robe, the colour of the pilgrim flag, or of the inner lining of the fruit of knowledge when you break through the sheath in which it shelters from the world. About his head were wound fold on fold of muslin of the same mystic hue, and the way of winding, and his speech, bewrayed him of the Punjab. But as I have said, you must never locate the holy. He walked with head erect, straight as an arrow, nor receiving nor giving salutation to any; and he came to me where I stood talking to my Wisest of the Wise, and “When,” said he, “may I come to talk with the Miss Sahib of the big-little things?” And I: “How know you that I like to talk of these things? and what are they?” “I know; the Miss Sahib knows. When may I come?”