the old woman wakes up a little, grunts a little more, "Who knows
where she is going?" she mumbles, and relapses into grunts.

"I know where I am going," the girl answers. "Amma, don't you want to
know?"

"Don't I want to know what?"

"Where you are going."

"Why do I want to know what?"

The girl goes over it again. The old woman turns to her
daughter-in-law. "Is the rice ready?" she says. The girl tries again.
The old woman agrees we all must die. Death is near to the ancient; she
is ancient, therefore death is near to her, she must go somewhere after
death. It would be well to know where she is going. She does not know
where she is going. Then she gazes and grunts.

[Illustration: Enlargement of one of the old dames seen in chapter vi. A
capital typical face. We have a number of these keen, interesting old
people, but very rarely find they have any desire to "change their
religion." They are "rooted."]

The girl tries on different lines. Whom is the old woman looking to, to
help her when death comes?

"God."

"What God?"

"The great God." And rousing herself to express herself she declares
that He is her constant meditation, therefore all is well. "Is the rice
ready?"

"No."

"Then give me some betel leaf," and she settles down to roll small
pieces of lime into little balls, and these balls she rolls up in a
betel leaf, with a bit of areca nut for taste, and this betel leaf she
puts into her mouth--all this very slowly, and with many inarticulate
sounds, which I have translated "grunts." And this is all she does. She
does not want to listen or talk, she only wants to scrunch betel, and
grunt.

This is not a touching tale. It is only true. It happened this evening
exactly as I have told it, and the girl, a distant connection of the old
woman, who had come with me so delightedly, eager to tell the Good
Tidings, had to give it up. She had begun by speaking about the love of
Jesus, but that had fallen perfectly flat; so she had tried the more
startling form of address, with this result--grunts.

I spent an afternoon not long ago with a more intelligent specimen. Here
she is, a fine sturdy old character, one of the three you saw before.
She was immensely interested with her photo, which I showed her, and she
could not understand at all how, in the one moment when she stood
against a wall, her face "had been caught on a piece of white paper." A
little explanation opened the way for the greater thing I h