what effect questions like this would have on your minds if you had been in my place! "Once it happened that I was obliged to stay in school for some time, and go twice a day for my meals to the house of a relative. Passers-by, whenever they saw me going, gathered round me. Some of them made fun and were convulsed with laughter. Others, sitting respectably on their verandas, made ridiculous remarks, and did not feel ashamed to throw pebbles at me. The shop-keepers and venders spit at the sight of me, and made gestures too indecent to describe. I leave it to you to imagine what was my condition at such time, and how I could gladly have burst through the crowd to make my home nearer. "Yet the boldness of my Bengali brethren cannot be exceded, and is still more serious to contemplate than the instances I have given from Bombay. Surely it deserves pity. If I go to take a walk on the strand, Englishmen are not so bold as to look at me. Even the soldiers are never troublesome, but the Baboo boys[6] have their levity by making fun of everything. 'Who are you?' 'What caste do you belong to?' 'Whence do you come?' 'Where do you go?'--are in my opinion, questions that should not be asked by strangers. There are some educated native Christians here in Serampoor who are suspicious; they are still wondering whether I am married or a widow; a woman of bad character or excommunicated. Dear audience, does it become my native and Christian brethren to be so uncharitable? Certainly not. I place these unpleasant things before you that those whom they concern most may rectify them, and that those who have never thought of the difficulties may see that I am not going to America through any whim or caprice. [Footnote 6: Educated Hindoo of the middle class.] "Shall I not be excommunicated when I return to India? Do you think I should be filled with consternation at this threat? I do not fear it in the least. Why should I be cast out, when I have determined to live there exactly as I do here? I propose to myself to make no change in my customs and manners, food or dress. I will go as a Hindoo and come back here to live as a Hindoo. I will not increase my wants, but be as plain and simple as my forefathers, and as I am now. If my countrymen wish to excommunicate me, why do they not do it now? They are at liberty to do so."