eir occupants out before their doors. Men but
half-clothed spread out their wares, or plied their trades, in full
view of all, and children with no clothes at all paddled their bare
black feet in the gutters, or sat cross-legged, rolling marbles over
the paving stones. Presently, Faith pointed with a significant smile,
and as they drove slowly by a teeming doorway, each gazed with
astonished curiosity at the characteristic scene.

The central figure was a man in the barber's hands, who was just then
calmly lathering his customer's face in the full gaze of all, while
close by a straight, lithe, young Indian woman, with a bright-eyed baby
sitting astride her hips, stopped to sell the two a handful of figs,
from the fruit-tray balanced lightly above the gay cotton sari
confining her dark locks.

"The men seem to have the best time of it here," remarked the girl in
low tones. "The idea of that poor girl carrying so much about with
her. I should think her baby was enough!"

"Yes, but that is better than being harnessed up with a donkey," said
her father, bending forward to give the driver some instructions.

Faith looked at him with an astonished gaze.

"I never heard you speak of marriage like that before," she said
reproachfully.

"Marriage?" He looked at her with a dazed expression, then broke into
a hearty laugh. "So you thought my donkey was a husband? A queer
mistake that! No, I meant the real thing--the four-legged donkey--and
I literally mean that poor women are often used with donkeys to do the
same kind of work."

"Shameful!" cried Hope indignantly.

"That is by no means the worst that woman has to bear in this country.
I thank God my daughters came to a Christian land. A girl is of little
account here, except to bear burdens, or wait on her lord and master.
And when her husband dies she is to be deeply pitied. Married when but
a small child, she goes into her husband's family to be cared for by
his people, until old enough to be his wife in reality. Sometimes she
is well treated, sometimes not. If he does not happen to fancy her as
she grows older, her lot is little better than that of a slave, and she
is beaten and abused by the other more favored women. But this is
bliss compared with her condition should her husband die. Then, all
her ornaments, which she loves as little children love glittering toys,
are torn off, her head is shaved, she is made to look as hideous as
possible, and canno