'If they behave well, they are the most honoured members of their deceased husbands' families; nothing in such families is ever done without consulting them, because all are proud to have the memory of their lost fathers, sons, and brothers so honoured by their widows.[13] But women feel that they are frail, and would often rather burn themselves than be exposed all their lives to temptation and suspicion.' 'And why do not the men burn themselves to avoid the troubles of life?' 'Because they are not called to it from Heaven, as the women are.' 'And you think that the women were really called to be burned by the Deity?' 'No doubt; we all believe that they were called and supported by the Deity; and that no tender beings like women could otherwise voluntarily undergo such tortures--they become inspired with supernatural powers of courage and fortitude. When Dulî Sukul, the Sihôrâ[14] banker's father, died, the wife of a Lodhî cultivator of the town declared, all at once, that she had been a suttee with him six times before; and that she would now go into paradise with him a seventh time. Nothing could persuade her from burning herself. She was between fifty and sixty years of age, and had grandchildren, and all her family tried to persuade her that it must be a mistake, but all in vain. She became a suttee, and was burnt the day after the body of the banker.' 'Did not Dulî Sukul's family, who were Brahmans, try to dissuade her from it, she being a Lodhî, a very low caste?' 'They did; but they said all things were possible with God; and it was generally believed that this was a call from Heaven.' 'And what became of the banker's widow?' 'She said that she felt no divine call to the flames. This was thirty years ago; and the banker was about thirty years of age when he died.' 'Then he will have rather an old wife in paradise?' 'No, sir; after they pass through the flames upon earth, both become young in paradise.' 'Sometimes women used to burn themselves with any relic of a husband, who had died far from home, did they not?' 'Yes, sir, I remember a fisherman, about twenty years ago, who went on some business to Benares from Jubbulpore, and who was to have been back in two months. Six months passed away without any news of him; and at last the wife dreamed that he had died on the road, and began forthwith, in the middle of the night, to call out "Sat, sat, sat!" Nothing could dissuade her from burning; and in the morning a pile was raised for her, on the north bank of the large tank of Hanumân,[15] where you have planted an avenue of trees. There I saw her burned with her husband's turban in her arms, and in ten days after her husband came back.' 'Now the burning has been prohibited, a man cannot get rid of a bad wife so easily?' 'But she was a good wife, sir, and bad ones do not often become suttees.' 'Who made the pile for her?'