Aunt Khôjee looked after her fearfully, then once more turned to representative man in apology. 'Here are ill words, _meean_,' she began tremulously, 'yet God knows how hard it is to keep girls silent when the world about them hath grown so noisy. In the old days neighbours were of one's own sort; now, if they be ready to pay full rent, that is enough. I say naught against ours--though, good or bad, it was ill done of Alidâd, our cousin, to let the house his fathers died in. Still they be decent folk enough, though the son is a _balister_.[1] But, see you, since he returned from England he hath taken his wife to live as a _mem_ beyond the city. And she hath set his sisters agog to learn, as she learns, of a _miss_ from the _missen_. So what with all this talk, and the railway whistle so close, and Sobrai gossiping as girls will over the partitions----' Lateefa's thin laugh positively crackled. 'Said I not her virtue would not withstand a wall? But heed her not, sister. She is right, _for Sobrai_! Thou art right, for _Kôjeeya Khânum!_ Ye are both God-bred, God-fed! Except concerning houses--_there_ thou art wrong,' he added, giving the old lady a shrewd tentative look. 'Dead folk should remain in their graves and leave the letting of houses to the living. I deem Alidâd wise, for, as the old saw says, "_an empty house is the wasp's estate_." Jehân should do the like with this, if the Nawâbin would consent to live elsewhere.' 'Elsewhere?' echoed Khôjee, aghast. 'Where else should Noormahal live but in her own house?' 'In a smaller one. Look! saw you ever such a wilderness of a place for five women and a child!' He swept a derisive finger round the wide courtyard, the terraced arcades, the storied vista of the _zenan-khana_, the half-fortified gateway, where the royal peacocks still spread their broken plaster tails. And as he did so the flood of yellow sunshine, as if in answer, betrayed every cranny in the cracked brickwork, every scar in the mouldering stucco. 'Tis as a stone on the tail of a kite, sister,' he went on, 'a burden not to be borne by frailty that can scarce support itself.' He had, as he spoke, been tying his morning's work together ere taking it to the bazaar, and now he stood balancing a balloon-like bundle, almost as big as himself, upon his hand; but he emphasised his remark by withdrawing that support, then, ere the kites touched ground, catching the bundle again, so holding them suspended. 'It needs some one to keep feather brains from the gutter,' he continued gravely, 'and thou, Khôjee, art the only body in this house with sense. Khâdjee, thy sister, hath decorum, Sobrai desires, and Noormahal, poor soul, dreams! So let me speak thee soberly. Thou hast heard of this plague, sister?' Khôjee cracked all her fingers wildly, to avert evil, ere quavering, 'Who hath not? Hath it come, Lateefa? Shall we be all sent to hospital and poisoned?'