tle child, but hardly knew how to do it.
She feared to tell the two women she had overheard their conversation,
so in the simplicity of her heart she prayed that the widow might be
detained and kept from offering her gift till our worker, old Devai,
could come; and she wrote to old Devai.

Happily Devai was at home when the letter reached her; otherwise days
would have been lost, for her wanderings are many. She went at once, and
found the mother most reasonable. Her idea had been to acquire merit for
herself, and an assured future for her child, by giving it to the gods;
but when the matter was opened to her, she was willing to give it to us
instead. In her case, as in the other, our natural instinct would have
been to try to make some provision by which the mothers could keep their
babies; but it would not have been possible. The cruel law of widowhood
had begun to do its work in them. The Temple people's inducements would
have proved too much for them. The children would not have been safe.

Once it was a man-servant who saved a lovely child. He heard an aside in
the market which put him on the track. The case was very usual. The
parents were dead, and the grandmother was in difficulties. For the
parents' sake she wanted to keep the dear little babe; but she was old,
and had no relatives to whose care she could commit it. Mercifully we
were the first to hear about this little one; for even as a baby she was
so winning that Temple people would have done much to get her, and the
old grandmother would almost certainly have been beguiled into giving
her to them. How often it has been so! "She will be brought up carefully
according to her caste. All that is beautiful will be hers, jewels and
silk raiment." The hook concealed within the shining bait is forgotten.
The old grandmother feels she is doing her best for the child, and the
little life passes out of her world.

"It is a dear little thing, and the man (its grandfather) seemed really
fond of it. He said he would not part with it; but its parents are both
dead, and he did not know what might happen to it if he died." This from
the letter of a fellow-missionary, who saved the little one and sent her
out to us, is descriptive of many. "Not the measure of a rape-seed of
sleep does she give me. I have done my best for her since her mother
died, but her noise is most vexatious." This was a father's account of
the matter only a week or two ago. "Have you no women relation