to the four winds of heaven in loud cries and lamentations after the fashion of all Orientals.
As the shades of evening fell, Haro and Gouri, guardian deities and succourers of humanity in distress, happened to be walking the earth, and his cries and lamentations reached their ears. "Hark, lord!" said Gouri, addressing her spouse, "Is not that the cry of some mortal lamenting his lot? He must be in sore distress. Let us go and relieve him."
Haro, annoyed at the idea of his walk being cut short, tried to dissuade her, saying: "Fair goddess! suffering is the badge of mankind. Indeed, these mortals bring down suffering upon their own heads by sheer demerit, and suffer they must, do all you can, until they have passed through the usual cycles of birth, death, and rebirth, again and again, working out demerit by merit in the process, and thus paving the way for final absorption into the Deity, the source of their being. So why trouble about these wretches?"
The goddess, whose feminine heart refused to be convinced by his male logic, insisted upon Haro accompanying her to the spot whence the cry arose, and Haro was obliged to give in to his headstrong spouse.
As soon as the Brahmin saw Haro and Gouri, whom he recognized by the halo around their heads, coming towards him, he set up a still louder wailing as if to move them, specially the goddess, to pity.
They asked him what his mind oppressed,
What woe lodged in his priestly breast.
The youth then told Haro and Gouri, between sobs and tears, of the domestic tragedy enacted from day to day—of the starving of his young wife and himself—and pointed, in corroboration, to his ribs, which were
