say against the torrent of words and facts.

"Not true!" echoed the other, remorselessly. "Come hither, and see if it be not true that a wedding is nigh."

Seizing Veru by the wrist, she dragged her across the court-yard, flung open the store-room door, which was kept jealously locked against all intrusion, and pointed to a row of handkerchief-covered basket-trays, ranged in order on the ground.

"Behold!" she cried, jeeringly, as she lifted the covering from one, displaying a pile of cheap tinsel-decked garments, such as are made to fill up the measure of more solid wedding presents. "Guneshwa's mother is not so careless as his wife. Here is everything needful, and yonder is the pile of dates whence he took the offering that went with him to-day. Stay--thou canst read! Put thy scholarship to some use for once, and see if it be not true."

But Veru did not take the letters thrust at her; the shock was too great, following on her excitement and utter weariness. She swayed as she stood, and with a cry of "O Guneshwa, bring the dates back! bring them back!" she fell in a heap among the baskets.

In the dawn of the next day, her mother-in-law, as she lay down to snatch a little sleep while one of her cronies watched by Veru's bed, told herself that the house was cursed indeed! Who would have dreamed of the gods bringing such hopes to Veru? Who would have thought of her concealing them even for a day? And what a heritage of evil she would leave behind her if she died now! Nihâli's augury was bad enough, but what chance would there be for the new wife if the ghost of an expectant mother haunted the house?

Veru must not die--should not die; so the old woman nursed her tenderly, and strove in her rough way to bring comfort to the mind stricken by mad jealousy and resentment.

"I will die," was the only response; "I will die and become a ghost![4] I will! I will!"

"Hearken, O Veru," replied her mother-in-law at last, "thy dying will not harm any one, for if thou diest ere Guneshwa returns, I swear he shall never know a word, neither of thy hopes nor of thy fears! It shall be silence, silence forever, and who fears a ghost he knows not of? Answer me that!"

And Veru, gripped in the stern old woman's greater strength, could only turn her face to the wall sullenly.

"Hast thou no message for Guneshwa?" asked the watcher at the 

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