A day or two after we left for home. The munshi was very sad and disappointed, for he had shared my joy in anticipation, as he now shared my sorrow. I took no pleasure in looking out of the windows of the rehl, nor cared whether we stopped anywhere or whether we went on. My heart was dead, my life had stopped and all desire had ceased. The dear mama and all I knew of her came to mind. She had gone, and now that little playful sister, how beautiful she appeared to me, she had gone too, and I would never see her again. My cup of sorrow was full, overflowing, and the dead aching pain in my heart choked me, and the more I felt the more I wished that I might be gone too as they were. I cannot tell how much I thought and felt, for who can measure the heart’s sorrows? Life for me had changed, for its only joy and hope was dead. I went through the usual routine of school duties, hardly conscious of what I was doing. I took no pleasure in anything. The boys tried to sympathize with me, but as they could do nothing they left me alone. The mem sahib talked to me and said, “It was the will of God.” I had been by this time taught a little about God. I could not see why it was the will of God that I should suffer so when I had not deserved it. I had seen some of the boys punished because they had done something wrong. I could see the right and justice of this, but what had I done to deserve punishment? I had always been kind to the little sister and loved her better than myself. When I was so hungry that I could barely stand up, and got a few grains of parched rice or grain, I gave them to her. I took more pleasure in seeing her eat them than in eating them myself. Her smile to me was my joy. If God was one of love and tender mercy, as I had been told, why was it His will that I should lose my sister and suffer so terribly? If I had done nothing for her, had ill treated her, then it might be the will of a just God to have deprived me of her as a punishment.