THE SLAVE GIRL OF AGRA
Jumna. Sirish and Saibalini and Hemlata would accompany her in the long journey, and would see her comfortably settled there before their return. The invaluable Gokul Das would make all the arrangements for the journey, would accompany the family as far as Rajmahal, and would then return to Debipur to look after the estate in the absence of his Master.
Gokul Das listened and obeyed. Every arrangement was made, and the party waited for the auspicious day fixed by the family priests to commence their journey. Before that day came Gokul Das sent his humble respects to his old mistress, and craved an interview and her blessings before she left Debipur.
They met at last—Nobo Kumar's widow and Gokul Das—but not as they had met before. Their angry passions had been silenced, their strong purposes had been solved by the hand of Fate, their years on this earth were drawing to a close. They had struggled and schemed and fought, they had won or lost. But the stately and venerable widow, now entering on the last stage of life, effaced the memory of all bitterness with a word of gentle blessing when Gokul Das bowed before her to the ground. And he, too, when he received that blessing from the saintly widow, robed in the vestments of a religious woman, perhaps felt a secret pang in his heart. His memory travelled back to those old days when this woman had fed him as a boy and helped him as a friendless dependant of the house. Not often had Gokul Das felt humbled even before the great and the mighty on earth, but before this silent grey-haired woman, smiling benignantly on him, Gokul Das felt somewhat like a culprit before a Queen.
"Mother goes to holy Mathura to retire from
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