THE SLAVE GIRL OF AGRA
meant for habitation. The state rooms, described above, were in the front; while behind the quadrangle rose the pile of latticed apartments for women. The stateliest room here was reserved for Noren; while Hemlata and her mother occupied humbler apartments. Crowds of women, related to the Zemindar's family, found shelter with their children in this august house, according to the custom of the East.
Behind the women's apartments again there was another quadrangle frequented only by the women of the house. This inner quadrangle presented a picture of domestic work and domestic life. Stores of rice and grain were kept; daily supplies of milk and curd, fish and vegetables, were received, and the kitchen fire blazed from morning to midnight. Busy matrons and women-servants worked all day long, and little children enlivened the place with their boisterous games. In a corner of this inner quadrangle was the Family Temple, where the family priest chanted his prayers, amidst the tinkling of bells and the blowing of shells, morning and evening.
The gardens attached to the house lay further beyond. A spacious lake, surrounded by fruit trees, was bounded by a wall on all sides; and small doors in the wall communicated with the town. Hindu custom did not prevent ladies of the highest rank from frequenting the town, to have their morning ablutions in the sacred river, to offer prayers in a distant temple, or to visit an esteemed neighbour. And when the ladies of the Zemindar's house paid such visits they generally used the inner gates, avoiding the outer quadrangle.
Nobo Kumar's wife was a typical Zemindar's
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