nt man,
I returned to my tents to prepare for the reception of Raghunath Rao
and his party. They came about nine o'clock with a much greater
display of elephants and followers than the minister had brought with
him. He and his friends kept me in close conversation till eleven
o'clock, in spite of my wife's many considerate messages to say
breakfast was waiting. He told me that the mother of the late Raja,
his nephew, was a very violent woman, who had involved the state in
much trouble during the period of her regency, which she managed to
prolong till her son was twenty-five years of age, and resigned with
infinite reluctance only three years ago; that her minister during
her regency, Gangadhar Muli, was at the same time her _paramour_, and
would be surely restored to power and to her embraces, were her
grandson's claim to the succession recognized; that it was with great
difficulty he had been able to keep this atrocious character under
surveillance pending the consideration of their claims by the Supreme
Government; that, by having the head of her grandson shaved, and
making him go through all the other funeral ceremonies with the other
members of the family, she had involved him and his young _innocent
wife_ (who had unhappily continued to drink out of the same cup with
her husband) _in the dreadful crime of mourning for a father whom
they knew to be yet alive_, a crime that must be expiated by the
'prayaschit,'[7] which-would be exacted from the young couple on
their return to Sagar before they could be restored to caste, from
which they were now considered as excommunicated. As for the young
widow, she was everything they could wish; but she was so timid that
she would be governed by the old lady, if she should have any
ostensible part assigned her in the administration.[8]

I told the old gentleman that I believed it would be my duty to pay
the first visit to the widow and mother of the late prince, as one of
pure condolence, and that I hoped my doing so would not be considered
any mark of disrespect towards him, who must now be looked up to as
the head of the family. He remonstrated against this most earnestly;
and, at last, tears came into his eyes as he told me that, if I paid
the first visit to the castle, he should never again be able to show
his face outside his door, so great would be the indignity he would
be considered to have suffered; but, rather than I should do this, he
would come to my tents, and es