“O maiden, whose daughter are you?”
“I am Balamitra’s daughter.”
“O maiden, be not angry if I ask you a few questions.” [[112]]
She smiled at first, and then said, “O uncle, why should I be angry? Please to ask them.”
“While these girls, as they went, were all running, skipping, rolling, turning round, singing, and doing other undignified things, you wended your way slowly, decorously, and in a seemly manner, reaching the park together with them.”
Viśākhā replied, “All girls are a merchandise which their parents vend. If in leaping or rolling I were to break an arm or a leg, who then would woo me? I should certainly have to be kept by my parents as long as I lived.”
“Good, O maiden; I understand.”
He said to her next, “These girls took off their clothes at a certain place, and went into the water and sported in it unclothed, but you lifted up your clothes by degrees as you went deeper into the water.”
“O uncle, it is necessary that women should be shame-faced and shy, and so it would not be well that any one should look upon me unclothed.”
“O maiden, who would see you there?”