and was at once taken into an inner apartment, where he beheld, though at a distance, his veiled wife, who appeared anxious to avoid him, according to the immemorial custom of her country that no girl wife should show her face to her lord before marriage. Running towards her, he bowed low to her, touching her feet with his forehead. This made every one in the house titter, but unconscious of his stupidity, he went in, squaring his chest and bearing himself proudly.
Sometime afterwards, a dish containing fruits and sweets was laid before him, and he could without difficulty put each of these into his mouth, agreeably to his mother's advice. But when the noon-day meal was served, being naturally voracious, he invoked the most fearful curses on his mother's head, on account of the restraint her commands enjoined upon him.
The day passed without anything noteworthy happening, and at night, when the last meal was served, he was in the same predicament as at dinner, or even in a greater, for the dish before him was then khichuri, a mixture of boiled rice and pulse, seasoned with ghee and spices. The greater portion of the food was liquid, and poor Budhi was at a loss to discover how to quiet the cravings of hunger. But his mother's command was his law, and with great regret he was forced to leave most of the dish uneaten. Finally the whole house retired for the night. Budhi, of course, was in the same room with his wife, and his friend was in the room in the outer apartments. The wife, too young to enter into a long conversation with him, soon fell asleep; but the burning of his empty stomach kept him awake, and, on tiptoe, he crept out into the room occupied only by his friend. He roused him, and with tears informed him of his distress. Together he and his friend began searching about the room, with the result that they found a trap-door leading into a room below. Budhi bent his head to try and see if there was any food there, and to his delight he saw a harhi full of molasses. He got down through the
