"That I have said. She is foster-sister and of the circle of distinction. Thy Yenkâm can tell thee of genealogies; they tire my head. So write! Dost hear?"
Babar laughed. He loved to take orders from those sweet lips; besides a certain zest came with the idea of writing to an unknown poetess.
"Yea! I will write," he said meekly, "but I will have to regard zals and zes; for more elegant nastâlik saw I never than hers."
So the letter was written and despatched express to the care of his Yenkâm at Khorasân, and six weeks later little Ma'asuma sat beside her foster-sister in the summer house of the new Garden of Fidelity which Babar was laying out at Adinahpore, and whither he had taken his young wife whose daily increasing delicacy filled him with concern. Of all the gardens that Babar planted and watered, this was the one nearest his heart. In a most romantic situation, on the south side of, and overlooking the river, its groves of oranges and citrons grew untouched by hard winter frosts, while every flower, every tree of his beloved hill country flourished side by side with those of warm climates. Above it towered the White-Mountain and the Almond-Spring Pass, below it the valley debouched into wide fertility.
And Babar was hard at work, delving away himself like any Adam; making a four-square cross of marble reservoirs, through which the clear, hill stream might run, planting new flowers from here, there, everywhere. The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was sinking under her task of son-bearing.
"Then he knows not who I am," said the tall, slender woman on whose knee Ma'asuma was resting her pretty, weary head. "I deemed thou hadst told him, as we agreed." She spoke gravely and her level black brows were faintly knit. The rest of the face was richly beautiful in strong sweeping curves, but those level brows and the dark, thoughtful eyes beneath them held the attention. "Not that it matters," she added quickly, seeing tears ready to brim over the violets upturned to her. "After all, 'tis nothing to thy lord--or to any other man--whether I be widow to Mirza Gharîb Beg or no, so long as I be honourable woman. Therefore tell him not, now that I am here." And Babar coming in to see his wife found the veiled new-comer courteous in speech, charming in manner. Found also such favourable change in his darling's spirits, that a glow of comradeship for his aide rose up in his soft heart at once.
So they were very happy together, those three, and by degrees foster-sister's thick enshrouding veil was changed for a more filmy one and Babar could get a glimpse of those glorious eyes and see the little satirical smile about the strong curves of the mouth.
They reminded him vaguely, why he knew not, of his dead Cousin Gharîb; but he never spoke of this to Ma'asuma. With her burden of coming life it would be unlucky to speak of the dead. Thus a week or two went by, and all insensibly the man learnt to rely on the woman who shared with him the charge of the girl.
"The Most-Benevolent one is very good to my wife," he said suddenly one day, "and my gratitude can only lie in words."
The Most-Benevolent bowed gravely. "Thanks are not needed. Ma'asuma-Begum came into this dust-like one's life, when it was unhappy. She hath been God's best boon to me."