This set the Hindu women laughing; Premi alone looked almost sternly grave. Several of the bibis assured the lady that what Darobti had said was true. Alicia could not doubt that Premi had been married to a man old enough to have been her grandfather, and his death at so ripe an age was visited on his poor young widow as a crime! “Before the English annexed the Panjab,” reflected Alicia, “this helpless victim would probably have been burned alive on the old mans funeral pile. And now she is a drudge—a slave!” The sound of the heavy thuds of the club wielded by Premi’s slender hands was painful to the English lady. It was with an effort that Alicia opened her Urdu Bible and attempted to read. Attempted; for Harold’s wife did not, on that first visit, succeed in gaining one attentive listener. She was interrupted ere she had finished two verses by an attendant, who, by Chand Kor’s orders, brought her a rupee, and something that looked rather like an ill-shaped cannon-ball made of coarse and very brown sugar. Alicia had been told beforehand simply to touch the money, should any be offered. Had she put the coin into her pocket, sadly would she have disappointed the offerer of the silver. But the big ball was something different; it was intended to be retained, and Alicia had received no instructions regarding the presentation of gur. She was afraid of giving offence by rejecting the clumsy gift. Alicia wondered whether she were expected to eat the huge lump of brown sugar; but its size and shape made this an impossible feat. All that the lady could do was to take the sticky mass into her hand (thereby sacrificing her glove), and to express her thanks as well as she could by smiles and saláms. Alicia then having come quite to the end of her Urdu, and feeling that it would be impossible to read, rose from her charpai. Noisy expostulations made her only the more anxious to depart. Again followed by her juvenile escort, the young lady made her way down the dark stair, and was glad when she reached the place outside the fort where her doli was resting on the ground. She was rather encumbered by the gur, in addition to her large bag and umbrella. “Oh! here is a poor famished wretch, just the person to prize my brown cannon-ball,” said Alicia to herself, as her eyes fell on a disgusting-looking being just about to enter the court-yard—a thin, gaunt man, scantily clothed, his matted hair daubed like his face with ashes, which gave him a ghastly appearance. The man held aloft a pole from which hung a variety of rags, bones, and other unsightly pendants. Half averting her face, with a feeling of mingled repulsion and pity, Alicia held out the gur to the beggar. The man muttered she knew not what, but did not deign to touch what she offered. On returning home, Alicia did not fail to give to the little missionary party a full account of her visit, ending by telling of the poor wretch disfigured with ashes and clothed in rags.