She to whom I refer was loved and honoured, the high priestess, so to speak, of her family. “She was too holy for life’s commonplace, so the Destroyer set her free to pray,” as said her Father. Yet, she also was accursed, a thing of ill-omen, not to be seen on occasions auspicious, barred then, even from the Temple. If aught went wrong in the house, even her staunchest friend would say: “I must have looked at your face this morning, _Didi_.” And, to be the bringer of bad luck, that must be the hard part of the lot of these women. That they keep their faces to the Light, in spite of this, seems to me the very crown of Sainthood. I have spoken of one type of widow, the rarest; some there are who identify themselves with the thing accursed, who have not the strength, like that other, to falsify the curse by every moment’s life of blessed service, many who accept misery as their portion; some who distract themselves from misery by vice or by lapses from virtue.... The odd thing is that modern Hinduism, as represented by the Priesthood, would wink at the last-named, while excommunicating the virtuous widow who re-married. I said “the odd thing,” but wrongly, for of course, if my earlier conclusion be true, and modern Hinduism is a system of canonical “Thou-shalt-nots” and not of refined ethics (as in the _Shasthras_), the Priests are quite consistent. “You shall be outcast. I will not dine with you.” It is but another anomaly in this land of anomalies that _that_ should be the strongest possible sanction in a community where there is no social intercourse in the Western sense, where individual families live so entirely aloof, that their womenkind do not visit each other. But the fact is, there is nothing more unassailable than caste. In the second century before Christ Buddha strove to break it down--Gautama Buddha, who was so reverenced by the Hindu that he is considered an incarnation of Krishna.... Yet, to-day, in Buddha Gaya, the preacher of the brotherhood of man sits in the beautiful old Temple, to which Hindu and Buddhist alike come on pilgrimage, with a caste mark on his forehead! And under the very shadow of the image the Brahmin will throw away the food or water defiled by contact with the outer-brother. We see men travelling by the same train (and of course this and all the other cohesive tendencies always being quoted to us do effect something), and we think this represents a breaking down of barriers. Does it, of the real barrier? Listen to the Water-Carriers on the platform: “Water, water for the Mahommedan”; “Water for the Hindu”; “Water for _the Brahmin_.” The Brahmin may “water” any caste, the highest may stoop to serve the lowest; but the highest may not accept service of any but the highest.