And Eva thought it heart-rending, this living on a rix-dollar a week, with four children, in a house which let in the rain, so that it was impossible to cook there.
“Let me look after your second little daughter, Saina,” said Eva, a day or two after.
Saina hesitated, smiled: she would rather not, but dared not say so.
“Yes,” Eva insisted, “let her come to me: you will see her all day long; she will sleep in cook’s room; I shall provide her clothes; and she will have nothing to do but to see that my room is kept tidy. You can teach her that.”
“So young still, mem-sahib; only just ten.”
“No, no,” Eva insisted. “Let me do this to help you. What’s her name?”
“Mina, mem-sahib.”
“Mina? That won’t do,” said Eva. “That’s the seamstress’ name. We’ll find another for her.”
Saina brought the child, looking very shy, with a streak of moist rice-powder on her forehead; and Eva dressed her prettily. She was a very attractive little thing, with a soft brown skin covered with a downy bloom, and looked charming in her new clothes. She sedulously piled the sarongs in the press, with fragrant white flowers between the layers: the flowers were changed for fresh ones daily. For a joke, because she arranged the flowers so prettily, Eva called her Melati, after the East-Indian jasmine.
Two days later, Saina crouched down before her njonja.