her. As a favour, live with me. I will call you niece, and you in return shall call me aunt."
At length it was settled that Malancha and the prince should live with the malini. Malancha thought that though the arrangement would in no way give her access to society, yet from there she might come to know the events of the outside world. At the request of her hostess she ate the stale rice given her, and gave the milk placed before her to Chandramanik. When it was evening she did the domestic duties appropriate to the hour, and retired for the night.
The malini within a short time obtained a modest income from the garden, and had two new rooms built on to her house, in one of which she herself slept, giving the other to her guests, and leaving the old room vacant for the time being. One day Malancha asked the malini if any arrangement could be made for the education of the boy with her, and was told that he might be sent to the Guru in the palace, who besides teaching the princes, received other pupils, no matter whose sons they were. Chandramanik, therefore, went there daily for instruction. Seven years passed in this way, during which the relationship between him and Malancha was kept hid from him, as well as from the malini.
One day, the king's daughter was admitted into the school. After this she attended it daily, but made no progress whatever. Her seven brothers asked her the cause of this; and she coldly confessed that the malini's boy (as Chandramanik was reputed to be) had so beautiful a face that she could not avert her eyes from it, and attend to the lessons. The explanation displeased the princes very much, and they thought of a plan to get rid of the boy. It was suspected by the princes that he, the son of a poor Mali, had but a scanty wardrobe, and therefore, to scare him away from school, they told him that if ever he presented himself before them, except in nicely washed clothes, he should lose his head. Deeply wounded at this, he went home with tears in his eyes, and told Malancha the reason. The latter immediately calling the malini into her presence,
