This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
206
THE SPOILT CHILD.
206

expression to the amazing beauty of Brindabun? Palms and trees of every kind flourished everywhere in abundance; thousands of birds were singing in every variety of note, perched on their branches. The waves of the Jumna, as if in merry play, embraced its banks. The boys and girls of Brindabun, in arbours and in the roads, were playing their sitars, and singing as they played. The night had come to an end, and all the temples, now that the hour for waving the lamps before the shrines had come, resounded with the hoarse murmur of tens of thousands of conch shells, and with the clanging of innumerable bells, shoals of tortoises played around the Kashi Ghât: hundreds of thousands of monkeys were leaping and jumping about on the trees, now curling their tails, now stretching them out, and now and again plunging headlong down with hideous grimaces, and carrying off some poor people's stores of food. Hundreds of pilgrims were wandering about the different groves, and as they gazed on the different objects of interest, were talking about the sports of Sri Krishna. As the sun grew hot, the earth got baked with the heat; it became irksome to walk about any longer on foot, and the majority of the pilgrims sat about under the shade of the trees, and rested.

Matilall's mother had been wandering about holding her daughter by the hand; soon overcome with fatigue, she lay down in a quiet spot with her head in her daughter's lap. The girl fanned and cooled her wearied mother with the border of her sari. The mother, feeling at length somewhat refreshed, said to her, "Pramada, my child, take a little rest yourself. Now I will sit up awhile." "Now that your fatigue is removed, mother," said the girl, "mine also has gone: continue lying down, and I will shampoo your feet." Tears rose in the mother's eyes as she heard her daughter's affectionate address, and