atrocities with flaxen hair and vivid pink cheeks, and asked if we saw
the resemblance. We didn't. They told Mrs. Gardner--who has been
many years in India, and looks it--that they thought she was much
nicer-looking than we were, her face was all one colour! (They spoke,
of course, in Bengali, but Mrs. Gardner translated.) Poor women! what
a pitifully dull life is theirs! G. was disappointed to hear they
hadn't become Christians. She had an idea that the Missionary had only
to appear with the Gospel story and the deed was done. I'm afraid it
isn't as easy as that by a long way.

Mrs. Gardner read a chapter from the Bible while we were there, and
these women argued with her most intelligently. They are by no means
stupid. Before we left G. sang to them, with no accompaniment but a
cold stare. When she finished they said they preferred Bengali music,
it had more tune. We left, feeling we had been no success.

Having seen a comparatively well-to-do household, Mrs. Gardner said
she would show us a really poor one. We followed her through a network
of lanes more evil-smelling than anything I ever imagined--London
can't compete with Calcutta in the way of odours--until we reached a
little hovel with nothing in it but a string-bed, a few cooking-pots,
and two women. Caste, it seems, has nothing to do with money, and
these women, though as poor as it is possible to be, were thrice-born
Brahmins, and received us with the most gracious, charming manners,
inviting us to sit on the string-bed while they stood before us with
meekly folded hands. The dim interior of the hut with its sun-bleached
mud floor, the two gentle brown-eyed women with their _saris_ and
silver anklets, looking wonderingly at G. in her white dress sitting
enthroned, with her blue eyes shining and her hair a halo, made an
unforgettable picture of the East and the West.