She was alert in an instant, and looking in his face answered his mute question fiercely.
"It is a girl--a useless girl! What need to wake thee for such bitter news? The woman is accursed."
The quick assent rising to his lips was stilled by a little cry from within the quilt. Something--he knew not what it was--thrilled him and kept him silent.
"Is--is it pretty, mother?" he asked, sheepishly, after a while.
The old lady eyed him with suspicious scorn.
"See for thyself, ninny," she replied, shortly.
Gunesh Chund felt a distinct disappointment as he looked down at his first-born. He had forgotten what new-born babies were like since the days when, as a boy, he was admitted to such sights. This one struck him as ugly, or at least as less pleasing than a lamb or a calf.
"God send it be not ill-looking, mother!" he blurted out in a tone of alarm.
She laughed, still in the same short and scornful fashion.
"Lo! there never was a plain woman among us. The child is well enough, and favours thee. Is it not enough that it should be a girl?"