"Your father is coming, blessed one! Say 'Father, excellent father! Your son and slave throws himself before your honourable footsteps!' Say it! Ah, good child! It was well done! Now again; and carry the hand to the forehead, thus! Good, little one! Mother's joy!" Suddenly the sound of Gunga's voice fell on her ear as some order was given in the distance to one of the dependents. "Ah! there is the grandmother! Quick! take it off! The coat is only to be worn in the presence of your father." She pulled it off, the child entering into the fun and excitement of doing something that must be hidden from the rigid mistress of the house. When the coast was clear Dorama crept back, the coat hidden under her saree and her finger on her lips. The purloined garment was replaced in the clothes chest without discovery, and the two, laughing like a couple of mischievous children, ran away in happy glee over their secret. At night she lay on her mat in the large room appropriated to the women of the household, wakeful with busy thought and anticipation. The deep breathing and occasional snore of her companions told her that they slept soundly. Then she ventured to move, to stretch her young limbs and sit up. Her brain seemed on fire. Would her mother give them again the little room; or would the son of the house be honoured by being assigned a larger and more important chamber? Would he be altered in any way? Possibly he had grown older in appearance, stronger in limb, more manly. How the women of England must have admired him! Hateful creatures! She detested English women! What was there to admire in them? They were blocks of ice with hard, cold, white skins and unkind eyes. She had never seen them except in the streets as they drove past in carriages or motors; but she was quite convinced that she read their characters aright, and that her opinion of them was correct. She heard the cocks crowing as they marked the progress of the night. In the midst of her musings she fell asleep, and dreamed that he had come, that he leaned over her in greeting as he had leaned in parting, and that their lips met once more. Among other preparations was the painting and decoration of the house. As the time approached Venetian masts were erected and wreaths suspended the length of the road in which they lived. Bunches of leaves and flowers were tied to the beams of the house, and whole plantain trees bearing their large clusters of golden fruit were fastened to every pillar. Then the guru with his disciple arrived, and the purohit from the temple, to superintend the ceremonies that were necessary for the restoration of caste. Gunga, in the absence of her husband in Bombay, gave the holy men a welcome, and saw that nothing was omitted that was conducive to their comfort.