lacks the support of Christian public opinion; he lacks also the
vitalizing power of a personal Christian experience. It is easy to speak
in public on the evils of early marriage; he speaks and the audience
applauds. He knows too well that in the applauding audience there is not
a man whose son will marry his daughter if she passes the age of
twelve. So the ardent reformer talks on, with the abandon of the darky
preacher who exhorted his audience "Do as I say and not as I do"; and
hopes that in some future incarnation life will be kinder, and he may be
able to carry out the excellent practices he really desires.

A Hindu girl of high family was allowed to go to college. There being
then no women's college in her part of India, she entered a Government
University in a large city, where there were a few other women students.
Western standards of freedom prevailed and were accepted by men and
women. Rukkubai shared in social as well as academic life. With a strong
arm and a steady eye, she distinguished herself at tennis and badminton,
and came even to play in mixed doubles, a mark of the most "advanced"
social views to be found in India.

After college came marriage to a man connected with the family of a well
known rajah. The husband was not only the holder of a University degree
similar to her own, but a zealous social reformer, eloquent in his
advocacy of women's freedom. Life promised well for Rukkubai. A year or
two later a friend visited her behind the purdah, with the doors of the
world shut in her face. The zeal of the reforming husband could not
stand against the petty persecutions of the older women of the family.
"I wish," said Rukkubai, "that I had never known freedom. Now I have
known--and lost."

[Illustration: WILL LIFE BE KIND TO HER?]