her father. On Christmas Eve our informant arrived in the compound with
his usual unexpectedness. The father was near, but would not come nearer
because the following day being Friday (a day of ill-omen), he did not
wish to discuss matters concerning the child; he would come on Saturday.
On Saturday he came, carrying a dear little babe with brilliant eyes.
She almost sprang from him into our arms, and we saw she was mad with
thirst. She was fed and put to sleep, and hardly daring yet to rejoice
(for the matter was not settled with the father), we took him aside and
discussed the case with him. There were difficulties. A Temple woman had
offered a large sum for the child, and had also promised to bequeath
her property to her. He had heard, however, that we had little children
who had all but been given to Temples, and he had come to reconnoitre
rather than to decide.

The position was explained to him. But the Temple meant to him
everything that was worshipful. How could anything that was wrong be
sanctioned by the gods? The child's mother had been a devout Hindu; and
as we went deeper and deeper into things with him, it was evident he
became more and more reluctant to leave the little one with us. "Her
mother would have felt it shame and eternal dishonour." We were in the
little prayer-room, a flowery little summer-house in the garden, when
this talk took place. On either side are the nurseries, and playing on
the wide verandahs were happy, healthy babes; their merry shouts filled
the spaces in the conversation. Sometimes a little toddling thing would
find her way across to the prayer-room, and break in upon the talk with
affectionate caresses. To our eyes everything looked so happy, so
incomparably better than anything the Temple house could offer, that it
was difficult to adjust one's mental vision so as to understand that of
the Hindu beside us, to whose thought all the happiness was as nothing,
because these babes would be brought up without caste. In the Temple
house caste is kept most carefully. If a Temple woman breaks the rules
of her community she is out-casted, excommunicated. "You do not keep
caste! you do not keep caste!" the father repeated over and over again
in utter dismay. It was nothing to him that the babes were well and
strong, and as happy as the day was long; nothing to him that
cleanliness reigned, so far as constant supervision could ensure it,
through every corner of the compound. We did not prof