les.

"And you have been married this evening, sahib?" continued the lady.

"I should not ask him any questions in that direction," interposed Sir
Modava, afraid she would meddle with an interdicted subject; and the young
gentleman's father seemed to have a similar fear, for he gently led him
away.

He was introduced to the members of the "Big Four," who could hardly keep
their faces at the proper length after hearing what passed between the
youthful sahib and Mrs. Belgrave, at the idea of a ten-year-old bridegroom.

"Is it possible that this little fellow is married, Sir Modava?" exclaimed
the principal lady from Von Blonk Park.

"There can be no doubt of it," replied the Hindu gentleman. "But it is
hardly in the same sense that marriage takes place in England and America.
The bride will be received into this Parsee family, and the groom will
remain here; but everything in the domestic circle will continue very
nearly as it was before, and husband and wife will pursue their studies."

"It looks very strange to us," added the lady.

"It is the custom of the country. The British government does not interfere
unnecessarily with matters interwoven into the religion and habits of the
people, though it has greatly modified the manners of the natives, and
abolished some barbarous customs. The 'suttee,' as the English called the
Sanscrit word _sati_ meaning 'a virtuous wife,' was a Hindu
institution which required that a faithful wife should burn herself on the
funeral pyre with the body of her deceased husband; or if he died at a
distance from his home, that she should sacrifice herself on one of her
own."

"How horrible! I have read of it, but hardly believed it," added the lady;
and others who were listening expressed the same feeling.

"It was a custom in India before the time of Christ. Some of your American
Indians bury the weapons of the dead chief, food, and other articles with
him, as has been the custom of other nations, in the belief that they will
need these provisions in the 'happy hunting-ground.' The Hindus believed
that the dead husband would need his wife on the other shore; and this is
the meaning of the custom."

"It is not wholly a senseless custom," said Mrs. Woolridge, "barbarous as
it seems."

"In 1828, or a little later, Lord William Cavendish, then Governor-General
of Bengal, determined to abolish the custom, though he encountered the
fiercest opposition from the natives, and even from man