Not content with depriving her of the best enjoyments of life which society affords, and the laws of God sanction, by condemning her to a state of perpetual widowhood, the great lawgiver--the unflinching foe of freedom in females--has further enjoined the strict observance of certain practices that add gall to her already overflowing cup of misery. As has been observed before, she is restricted to one scanty meal a day, always of the coarsest description, devoid of fish[112] which is generally more esteemed by an _ayistree_ lady than any other article of food in her bill of fare. She must religiously fast on every _ekadossee_, twice a month, and on all other popular religious celebrations. She must bare her body of all sorts of ornaments, even the _iron_ and the _gold_ bangles, which once constituted the _summum bonum_ of her life. As an appropriate substitute for the gold and pearl necklaces, she is enjoined to wear a _toolsee mala_ (a basilwood chaplet), and count a _toolsee_ wood bead roll for the final rest of her soul. She is prohibited from wearing any bordered clothes, a _thayti_ being her proper garment; she is not permitted to daub her forehead with _sidoor_, (vermillion), once the pride of her life when her lord was alive; she is forbidden to use any bazar-made article of food, and to complete the catalogue of restrictions she sometimes shaves her head purposely that she may have an ugly appearance and thereby more effectually repel the inroads of a wicked, seductive world. If she have any children to nurture, the happy circumstance affords a great relief to her wearisomely monotonous life. Day and night she watches them with great care, and looks forward to their progressive development with intense anxiety, forgetting in the plenitude of her solicitude her own forlorn condition. Should there be any mishap in their case, it causes an irreparable break-down in her spirit, which is for ever "sicklied over with the pale cast of thought." It is a painful fact that riches when not properly used have a tendency to corrupt the minds of human beings, and lead them from the path of virtue to that of vice. A wealthy widow who has the command of a long purse more readily falls a prey to the temptations of the world than one who, moving in an humbler sphere of life, has her mind almost wholly engrossed with domestic cares, and the thoughts of a future state of beatitude. "Verily," as Lord Lytton says, "in the domain of poverty there is God's word." Considering the endless round of hardship and self abnegations to which she is inevitably doomed by a terrible stroke of fortune, "which scathes and scorches her soul," it is cheering to reflect that she so often shines brightest in adversity. Indeed she may be occasionally said "to die ten times a day," but her incredible powers of patient endurance, coupled with her high sense of female honor, are deserving of the highest admiration. FOOTNOTES: