“Miranda just caught up her own soiled chaddar, and drew it closely around her—head, blue dress, and all.”
Robin laughed at Alicia’s vain attempt to make her cousin look like an English lady.
“The worst was when I tried to make my cousin put boots on,” continued Alicia, unable to resist joining in Robin’s mirthful laugh. “Her feet are certainly not larger than mine, and I had chosen an easy pair of boots. But all my persuasions and attempts to draw on the obnoxious articles ended in a burst of crying and sobbing on Premi’s part, and something like despair on mine.”
“Why distress the poor girl by compelling her to adopt English dress when she would look so much more beautiful in her own?” cried Robin. “Would you compare an ugly stiff hat—I beg your pardon, Alicia—with a chaddar falling in graceful folds round a slight, youthful form?”
“But suppose that Gilbert should send for his sister,” cried Alicia, with something between playfulness and impatience, “would you have her create a sensation by tripping barefoot up a London staircase, or introduce her to a fashionable sister-in-law wrapped up in a chaddar?”
“Wait till you know what Gilbert decides on, and at least wait till cooler weather comes, before you inflict the torture of the boot on poor little feet accustomed to freedom. And as regards chaddars, could you not contrive to manufacture one out of your odd pieces of muslin?”
“But Miranda will never be able to appear as a lady in England if we let her continue to dress like a Hindu,” observed Alicia smiling.
“I do not think it likely that she will ever go to England,” said Robin; “and if she remain at Talwandi, surely it is better that Premi should remain as a kind of silver link between European and native. She will be far more useful in mission work if we do not quite separate her in dress and habits from those whom she once deemed to be her own people.”
“In mission work!” exclaimed Harold, who had just joined his wife and brother in the veranda. “Robin, do you forget that the poor girl is as yet not even a Christian?”
“She will be one,” cried Robin the hopeful. “We shall see Premi a Christian—yes, and a worker. Alicia will rejoice over her sheaf.”