The infant, to whom the name of Nihâli had been given, lay in her arms, bedizened into the semblance of a performing monkey; tight little silk trousers on the bandy legs, a tinsel-decorated muslin bodice, and a flowing veil, the size of a pocket-handkerchief, disposed over the round skull-cap where a black fringe of wool simulated hair. On this outfit Veru had spent much time and trouble, while her mother-in-law grumbled under her breath at the expense, or openly said that in her day a decent woman would have thought it shame to make such a fuss over a girl, after keeping her master waiting ten long years for a child.
There was bitter war between these two women outwardly: yet, however fiercely Veru combated the elder woman's views, in her heart of hearts she could not overcome the inherited conviction that the meanest thing on God's earth, was a sonless wife. Cultured retorts as to what she had heard and read in school of Western opinions, and of the sex of the Queen-Empress, did very well as lethal weapons, but as inward balm were most unsatisfactory. Often and often, after a passage of arms in which her more dexterous point had reduced her adversary to the usual appeal for patience, she would creep away into one of the dark, windowless rooms opening off the central court-yard, on pretence that the light prevented her baby from sleeping. There, safe from observation, she would weep salt tears over its unconscious face. After all her prayers and alms, why had not Fate given her a son? How much easier it would have been for everybody, Fate included; for now high Heaven would have to be wearied once more!
She had seen but little of her husband during her days of seclusion, so the task of shutting her white teeth over a retort when he was by had not been a very difficult one. But now the every-day life was beginning again, and it would be harder to keep up the forbearance--though she was clever enough to see that it earned his gratitude.
He came in before going to his afternoon's work in the fields to inspect the preparations. The sight of the bedizened baby awoke his broad laugh.
"Ho! ho! ho! Grandmother, see what a figure Veru hath made of the child! For sure it is like the puppets Dya Ram brought round at Diwâli Fair, that danced on a string!"
"I'm glad thy wits give thee sense to see the folly of dressing the child so," grumbled the old woman. "In my day there were none of those fal-lals on farmers' children. We left them to the silly town's-folk."
"In your day, mother, farmers' wives did not know how to make them; but I cut and sewed them all," retorted Veru, with studious courtesy.
"Aye, aye, that's true," remarked her husband, relieved. "Thou hast clever fingers despite they are so small.--Hath she not, mother?"
"Clever, mayhap; but in my time wives found better work than snipping and sewing. They made stalwart sons for the hearth, and left clothes to the tailor. 'Tis the other way on now, I suppose. Thou wilt send to the tailor for a son soon, I suppose. It is time."
"Nay, but the mother is right," interrupted Gunesh Chund, hastily, seeing Veru's eyes begin to flash; "the little one is like a puppet, as I said, Veru, and 'tis happier with its arms and legs free. I love to watch it struggling on its back like a young duck with the megrims. 'Tis comical. But feed it well, wife; if 'twere a calf I would hold it over-thin. Young things need fat. Do as the mother bids thee, and 'tis sure to thrive. Had she not daughters of her own in her time?" His voice had a ring of appeal in it.