The Lake of Palms: A Story of Indian Domestic Life

All three women are of the same age and despite the cares and anxieties of their married life have not forgotten the love of their childhood THE WIFE THE village of the Lake of Palms slept at midnight under long rows of lofty palms whose feathery crowns gleaming in a flood of _silver light formed a weird picture against the blue canvas of the cloudless sky. [...] You come to the outer house and go away from the outer house—how are you to know the press of work on such occasions ? The cooking vessels are on the fire by three o'clock in the morning and the cooking goes on and the fire burns in the oven till three in the afternoon and yet the feeding is not over ! And what crowds of people and what profusion of.food !—is it possible to reckon ? " Why [...] He saw or he imagined that he saw the shadow of untimely care the the jewelled forehead under the diamonds and the glint of unshed tears in the corners of the young eyes. [...] But in vain he followed for the blushing maid had diappeared ! It is the older Indian version of the story of Apollo and Daphne and the names of the Dawgoddess too are the same in the Sanscrit as in the. Greek. [...] Bindu rose in the morning swept the rooms and the courtyard and then went to the pond behind the house and cleaned the dishes used on the previous right.