"I don't understand why he married a native," one of the Englishman's relatives remarked to a friend. "Otherwise he is a perfect Christian gentleman and an honour to the family."
The missionary, who chanced to overhear the remark, in her mind erased the "otherwise."
V
Mundra
"Mundra!" a harsh voice screamed from the door of the mud house. "Mundra, child of the devil, come here. Where are you, spending all your life in laziness and I working hard to put rice into the mouth of a god-cursed creature like you!"
There would have been no need for more than the first call, if the old woman had simply wanted the child to come to her, for at the first sound of the voice the little thing had started up from the dirt of the road where she had been lying and, gathering the sari, in which she had been wrapped, up around her hips and waist, had moved hastily towards the speaker. But the woman seemed to be giving vent to her own ill nature in an evidently customary and certainly vivid way.
"You vile object of the gods' wrath! To be sleeping when every decent creature is at work!
"Bring water," the old woman commanded fiercely and with a thrust of her foot sent the child, who had reached the door by that time, reeling in the direction of a large brass water pot which stood in a corner of the mud porch.
