She had a little sitting-room that opened into the back verandah. The door was seldom shut in the daytime. From a point of vantage in the doorway she superintended the tailor, and kept an eye on all that went on in the back verandah. She made as though she would seek her room with as little delay as possible. Eola, repentant that she had hurt her feelings by remarks about the bazaar gossip, softened in her manner and begged to hear the news.
"Do tell me, Mrs. Hulver, what they say. I have not heard anything except that Mr. Alderbury is coming by the Doctor's invitation. My brother only spoke of his visit this morning when he received Mr. Alderbury's reply to the invitation. The Principal was late in getting home from his ride, and had to hurry over breakfast to be in College in time."
The housekeeper was mollified and the dirzee forgotten in her eagerness to relate the news that was already thrilling the town.
"The story goes in the bazaar that Pantulu's son has turned Christian, and the whole family is in a great taking about it. They don't know what to do."
"Is that all? There is nothing much in that. Of course it is a good thing when a native becomes a Christian; but in these days it is not a matter to make a fuss about."
Mrs. Hulver regarded her seriously. She had expected to create something of a sensation by the announcement, but Eola took it as a trifle hardly worth mention.
"Begging your pardon, miss, there is a great deal in it to create a fuss; and what is more the whole town is working itself up into a ferment over it. They say that they have never had a caste man go Christian before. The Christians have always been pariahs and they have no caste to matter. As William—that was my third—used to say: 'Change your clothes; change your food; change your house if you like; but to change your religion is the very divil;' and he knew; for he'd been a Roman Catholic and he turned Protestant to marry me."
"How did you manage to persuade him?" asked Eola, her mind once more adrift.
Mrs. Hulver was always ready to talk incidentally of her late spouses. At the same time she never lost sight of the subject that caused the digression.
"He wanted me to change my religion; but I was firm. I told him that if he couldn't take me as I was he might go without me. I could get on without him. Besides it was only right that he should be the one to change, being the gentleman; it is the gentleman that ought to give way to the lady all the world over."