Reading the Christian customs concerning weddings in the English books, I shrank at the thought of marrying one whom I never saw. How many times have I prayed to God in behalf of the blind ones of Bengal. I have had to contend against my mother’s will, for she of course wished me to marry a girl of ignorance in the ignorant way. Do the Bengalees really know what a wife is, and what social pleasures are? They are at once cut off from _that_ society over which the gentler sex presides. It would be considered an act of shamelessness if a young wife should manage to see her husband in presence of any living creature. Twice a day when he takes his meal she can see him, if her eyes are very strong, through the meshes of her thick veil; or would she dare to draw her veil aside, the attendant girls or young women would hurl some rebukes at her. Poor thing, she cannot look at her own treasure! The plagues of some sort or other ever attend her, to trouble and put her to shame for trifles, which are neither sinful nor improper. Thus, while young, I troubled my good aunt for nothing serious. It was in the night, when the full-grown queen of the sky was shedding all her splendors on those Oriental regions, that we were standing in the yard of the house near the dining-room, where the gentleman of the house had entered to take his supper. We two were in the room, but at the approach of my father and uncle, she was obliged to come out. I too came out to cheer her loneliness for half an hour. But what did I? Just the contrary! There were two pairs of shoes on the dining-room steps, for the Hindoos do not carry into the room things made of leather. As the pair belonging to my uncle were elegantly embroidered with gold threads, and studded with small stones, which were dazzling as baby moons in the moonlight, my aunt took a fancy to thrust her feet into them and walked a few steps in the yard, with difficulty no doubt, for not being accustomed to wear shoes, and being so large that her feet seemed swallowed, as in small skiffs. Not knowing how to manage such a heavy pair, she made a horrible, rattling noise with the silver hoops round her ankles and the shoes, as she walked along. “What is the matter? What is that noise out there?” my uncle cried out. “Nothing, sir, only aunt was trying to walk in shoes.” “Walk in shoes!” he cried, “walk in shoes! A woman, and a Hindoo too! She is going to be a _Kristan_ (Christian), I guess.” Who can describe her embarrassment? She sat down senseless, and for several days could not show her face to her friends!