In another hour the rain ceased; Govind had fallen into a peaceful sleep; Bhawanee's face was irradiated with smiles; the old woman was setting out their mid-day repast on a mat in the adjoining apartment. I returned home, promising to call and see Bhawanee on the following day. The next day, when I started off, I fully expected to hear that Govind had passed away; but when I reached the outer gate of the yard enclosing Govind's dwelling I found the pundit, although looking weak and feeble enough, seated on a small stone holding in his left hand three blades of kusah-grass. The old woman, who was in the act of tying up the lock of sacred hair on his head in some mystical form, shouted to me to keep off. I stood at a distance and looked on. He was evidently undergoing the purification ceremony. Bhawanee, who smiled sweetly at me, was holding before her husband a bowl of water, which he first sipped, then flung a little of it toward the horizon, and washed his hands, ears, breast, eyes, nose, shoulders, and feet, repeating over each member a prayer. His wife then brought him a stick of lighted wood from the household fire; he breathed over it, repeating the mystic word "Aum," "O divine Spirit, resplendent Fire, purify me from all uncleanliness." He then placed the sacred grass on his right ear (Gunga, the sacred river, is supposed to have its source in the right ear of Brahm, the sacrificial fire (or life) in Brahm's nostrils, so that when the pundit touched these members of his person with fire and water all the impurity entailed by my visit to his house on the previous day passed away). Finally he took some sacred mud out of a pot which was handed to him by his wife, and made the holy mark, the circle and the cross of his caste and race, on his brow. Meanwhile, Doorah, the sister, had been purifying the hut. First it was sprinkled all over with holy water, smeared with cow-ordure, and lastly fumigated with certain gums--a very sensible proceeding in a hot, moist climate like that of Bombay. And at length the poor pundit, restored to his normal condition of holiness, was once more assisted into his bed by his tender and loving wife. I smiled at them from a distance, and went my way regretting more keenly than ever we were _so_ separated from one another that the simplest act of kind interest on my part should entail on the whole household a series of purificatory rites to last for seven days.