of
the strands were ribbon; the third was a tress of her gleaming hair. Roy
gazed at it a moment, lost in admiration, still wondering; then he
glanced at Tara's letter--not scrawled, but written with laboured
neatness and precision.

"DEAR ROY,--It was splendid. You are Prithvi Raj. I am
sending you the bangel like Aunt Lila told us. It can't be gold or
jewels. But I pulled the ribbin out of my petticote and put in sum
of my hair to make it spangly. So now you are Braselet Bound
Brother. Don't forget. From TARA."

"I hope you aren't hurting much. Do splain to Uncle Nevil properly
and come down soon. I am hear playing with Chris. TARA."

Roy sat looking from the letter to the bangle with a distinctly pleasant
kind of mixed-up feeling inside. He was so surprised, so comforted, so
elated by this tribute from his High Tower Princess, who was an exacting
person in the matter of heroes. Now--besides being a Knight and a
champion he was Bracelet-Bound Brother as well.

Only the other day his mother had told them a tale about this old custom
of bracelet-sending in Rajputana:--how, on a certain holy day, any
woman--married or not married--may send her bracelet token to any man.
If he accepts it, and sends in return an embroidered bodice, he becomes
from that hour her bracelet brother, vowed to her service, like a
Christian Knight in the days of chivalry. The bracelet may be of gold or
jewels or even of silk interwoven with spangles--like Tara's impromptu
token. The two who are bracelet-bound might possibly never meet face to
face. Yet she, who sends, may ask of him who accepts, any service she
pleases; and he may not deny it--even though it involve the risk of his
life.

The ancient custom, she told them, still holds good, though it has
declined in use, like all things chivalrous, in an age deafened by the
clamour of industrial strife; an age grown blind to the beauty of
service, that, in defiance of "progress," still remains the keynote of
an Indian woman's life.

So these privileged children had heard much of it, through the medium of
Lilamani's Indian tales; and this particular one had made a deeper
impression on Tara than on Roy; perhaps because the budding woman in her
relished the power of choice and command it conferred on her own sex.
Certainly no thought of possible future commands dawned on Roy. It was
her pride in his achievement, so characteristically expressed that
flattere