always busy, sweeping the house and compound, fetching water from the tank, cooking, and attending to the children. Very soon after she came to Silindu's house she began to talk and think of the children as though she had borne them herself. Like her brother she was slow and sparing of speech; and her eyes often had in them the look, so often in his, as if she were watching something far away in the distance. She very rarely took much part in the interminable gossip of the other village women when they met at the tank or outside their huts. This gossip is always connected with their husbands and children, food and quarrels.

But Karlinahami was noted for her storytelling: she was never very willing to begin, but often, after the evening meal had been eaten, the women and many of the men would gather in Silindu's compound to listen to one of her stories. They sat round the one room or outside round the door, very still and silent, listening to her droning voice as she squatted by the fire and stared out into the darkness. Outside lay Silindu, apparently paying no attention to the tale. The stories were either old tales which she had learnt from her mother, or were stories usually about Buddha, which she had heard told by pilgrims round the campfire on their way to pilgrimages, or in the madamas or pilgrims' resting-places at festivals. These tales, and a curious droning chant with which she used to sing them to sleep, were the first things that the two children remembered. This chant was peculiar to Karlinahami, and no other woman of the village used it. She had learnt it from her mother. The words ran thus:

'Sleep, child, sleep against my side, Aiyo! aiyo! the weary way you've cried; Hush, child, hush, pressed close against my side.  'Aiyo! aiyo! will the trees never end? Our women's feet are weary; O Great One, send Night on us, that our wanderings may end.  'Hush, child, hush, thy father leads the way, Thy mother's feet are weary, but the day Will end somewhere for the followers in the way.  'Aiyo! aiyo! the way is rough and steep, Aiyo! the thorns are sharp, the rivers deep, But the night comes at last. So sleep, child, sleep.'

'Sleep, child, sleep against my side,

Aiyo! aiyo! the weary way you've cried;

Hush, child, hush, pressed close against my side.

'Aiyo! aiyo! will the trees never end?

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