If, on the contrary, the girl be deficient in beauty, the bosom of the mother is perpetually disturbed by gloomy forebodings, which no worldly advantage can effectually remove, no reasoning can sufficiently suppress. The reassuring admonition of congenial minds may sustain her spirits for a time, but whenever alone or disengaged from the toils of domestic duties, her mind almost involuntarily reverts to the future destiny of the girl. As day by day she grows older, and her features begin to assume a more distinctive form, the deformity, which was but faintly perceived at first, becomes more striking. The mother herself, perhaps, being a living illustration of how fruitless were the attempts of her parents to secure for her a desirable match, naturally feels a strong misgiving as to the good fortune of her child. While the hearts of the parents are thus filled with disquieting thoughts, the girl is perfectly unconscious of the fate that awaits her. She laughs and sports about, regardless of what is written on her forehead by the _Bidhata pooroosh_. The performance of the religious vow in her infancy, having for its object the securing a good husband, might incidentally remind her of marriage, but the thought passes off in a moment like the streaks of a morning cloud. Hence it has been justly said that the happiest days in the life of a Hindoo female are those preceding her marriage. If in Bengal, under the paternal care of a Christian Government, she is not permitted to become a victim to the poppy at her dawn, or the flames at her riper years, like her Rajpoot sister in times of yore, she is ever and anon subject to the appalling hardships of a _bidhaba_ life, or widowhood. Though too young to fully realise the thousand and one evils of such a wretched existence, yet the living examples she daily and hourly sees around her make, to use a native phrase, "her hands and feet enter into her belly."