“If I go far from hence,” said he, “what will become of my only child? Behold, I have but one, and her mother is dead, and I have no sisters who would be to her as a mother. Buté, if I leave her, will be as a stray lamb that is found by the jackals.”
“Have no fear for Buté,” the Mem Sahiba made reply; “if it be your wish, I will place her in the school at Khushpore, for the Miss Sahiba there is my friend. Buté shall learn to read and to write, and all that is good will she learn; for the Miss Sahiba is one who fears God, and she dearly loves little children.”
And thus was it arranged; the moonshee went to Cashmere with the Sahib, and little Buté was sent to the school at Khushpore.
Buté shed many tears at parting from her father, but her tears were soon dried. The Miss Sahiba looked kindly upon her, and spoke sweet words; and though Buté was shy at first, and hung down her head in silence, even before the end of the day she was as merry as the little gray striped squirrel that runs up the trees, and hides in the branches.
Buté had now many companions, and soon made friends with them all. Very fond was the little girl of talking, and in the hours of play the words from her tongue flowed on as the brook that runs down from the hills. Buté liked to speak much of the Mem Sahiba whom none of the other girls had seen, and of the grand things in her house. Buté did not take any heed to speak truth, so that the stream of her words was not pure, but as a muddy and polluted brook.
“My Mem Sahiba,” the child would say, “has more shining rings on her fingers than there are leaves on that tree. The Sahib is a very great man; those who come near him bow down to the ground, and when he goes forth he rides on an elephant with a howdah of gold.”[29]
Some of Buté’s companions wondered when they heard her stories, and some laughed and called them jhuth muth (fibs); but when the Miss Sahiba heard them she never laughed, but she sighed, and her gentle face grew grave. Often, when alone in her room, the Miss Sahiba would kneel down and thus pray to the God in heaven who listens to prayer: “O Lord, show my dear children the shame and the sin of lying! Teach them Thy way of truth; make them holy, for Thou art holy!”
When Buté came to school, she wore a chaddar pink as the petals of a rose. The Miss Sahiba did not much like to see this chaddar, for those worn by all her other girls were white. But Buté did not wish to change her pink garment for a plain white one.
“I cannot leave off wearing this chaddar,” she said, drawing it closer round her slight form. “My Mem Sahiba gave it to me, and she told me always to wear it.”
The Miss Sahiba made no reply, but her mind was not at rest. She thought to herself,—“I never know whether Buté be speaking the truth or not. Oh that I could but trust her word! I love my little Buté—she is gentle and docile, quick at her lessons, never cross, and ready to do a kindness to any of her companions; but a pleasant child with a deceitful heart is like a fruit that looks fair to the eye, but which is all decayed and worthless within.”