Out of all this knot of etiquette, born, it seems to me, of some distorted view of danger to modesty, as well as of a becoming respect and reverence, it is hard to disentangle the Indian conception of the love of a maid for a man. But this is certain, it is unlike what is the ideal in the West. There is worship; he is her God; he has brought God close to her. She is created to serve him with all her powers of mind and body, to serve and never criticize or question. The habit of her life is expressive of the relationship. The day is planned round his needs. She brings water to wash his feet, cooks for him, anticipates his smallest want while he eats; if he leaves on the green plantain leaf of orthodoxy one mouthful for the faithful slave, how happy she is the day long! At his hands she holds her life.... I remember a poor little woman who had been induced by some modern-minded friend to resent the drunken belabourings of her husband.... She ran away to the protection of a relative, and all the Zenana held up hands of horror, not at the beating but at her resentment of it. “What! did she not know that Hindu wives belonged to their husbands, to be done with as they would? Would she not give her body to be burned at his desire? Why not then give it to be beaten at his desire?” And no reasoning would convince them of a difference. That this conception of devotion can rise to great heights one knows. It is not uncommon for a Hindu wife to make way of her own accord for some younger wife, even though retaining her passion of love for her husband, or rather perhaps, if one could conceive it, because she has arrived at Love’s perfection.... And I have seen her charming to the second lady: “Whom my Lord honours, shall I not love?” But there is little _camaraderie_, except sometimes in old age, when the grandchildren are growing up; there can be little between such differences of levels--and very little community of interest either in work or play--where one is educated and the other not, where one may go about the world unveiled, and the other is hedged round with protection of wall and curtain. Again, as there is no choice in marriage, since the orthodox marry in childhood, there is little chance for love except after marriage. “We grow up to think that such an one belongs to us,” explained an Indian girl to me of her boy husband; “we take the relationship as you do brothers and sisters; you do not choose them; you do not, however, therefore of necessity, resent them.” That attitude then is the beginning. That it does lead, as a rule, to loyalty and worship we know; that it often leads to a very high type of love, where each goes with each, all the way, in perfect sympathy, has also been known.