The young girl looked at her frankly. "I don't think so. I got two annas a day."
"Oh, my! I get ten rupees a month!"
The girl opened her eyes in surprise. "And what do you do?" she questioned in return.
"I am an ayah, I told you. All I have to do is to take care of the little boy. He is a dear, good boy. I dress him in the morning and give him his breakfast and watch him at play. I get his tiffin and then put him to sleep. After he wakes up I dress him all up fine and take him out in the compound in the carriage and usually his mother walks with us a little and then I give him an early supper and put him to bed and sit in the room with him until his mother comes up-stairs. Wouldn't you like to do that? It just isn't work at all and yet I get ten rupees a month for it."
"Oh, I would like to! But I'd never get a chance to do that," the girl said sadly.
"Were you ever in a sahib's house?" the old woman ambled on, seeing that the girl was really interested and impressed. "It is a great, big place, as big as that station almost," and the old woman pointed out to a station at which they were just stopping.
"My husband used to go to one sometimes," said the girl, and, clutching at her bundle, her face grew sad again.
"You are a widow?" asked the other, although she must have known from the girl's dress that she was.
"Yes, my husband has been dead two years." She paused a moment and then as if she could restrain herself no longer, as if the flood of her speech had been loosened, she went on rapidly in a low but intense tone. "Yes, for two years he has been dead. He was not sick long. I was but a girl. I did not know very much about it except that he was sick and that they made offerings to the gods and did all they could to cure him. But one day my mother-in-law came to me and called me terrible names and told me that if my husband died I would be to blame and that awful things would happen to me. She frightened me terribly and told me that I must not let him die. So I crept away to the temple. I had no offering to make except as I stole a handful of rice in the bazaar and took that. I prayed and prayed. At one temple the priests said that they would cure him for ten rupees but I had no money and I was afraid to go and tell my mother-in-law. A priest at another shrine said that a little Ganges water might help my husband and, as I turned away in despair, for I did not know where the Ganges was, I heard him say to a man standing there, 'When I die I am going to the Ganges and die there so that my bones may be thrown into the river and Mother Gunga may hold them upon her bosom; then shall I be forever happy.' But I had done all I could by my prayers and so I crept back home to find my husband—dead.—But I remembered what the priest had said.