Owing to these appliances the heavy work of the day was got through
usually in time for a late breakfast, the plates and dishes being washed
up and the knives cleaned by a mechanical process scarcely occupying two
minutes; and the afternoon was usually devoted to the instruction of
_chelas_ in esoteric branches of learning, and their practical
application to mundane affairs, until the cool of the evening, when
parties would be made up either for playing out-of-door games, in the
less violent of which the women took part, or in riding the beautiful
horses of the country, or in flying swiftly over its richly cultivated
and variegated surface, paying visits to other _damas_ or homes, each of
which was occupied on the same scale and in the same manner as our own.
After a late dinner, we usually had concerts, balls, and private
theatricals.

On the day following my arrival, Ushas explained to me the relationship
in which we were to stand towards each other. She said that marriage was
an institution as yet unknown to them, because their organisms had not
yet attained the conditions to which they were struggling. They had
progressed so far, however, that they had discovered the secret of
eternal youth. Indeed, Ushas herself was 590 years old. I was not
surprised at this, as something of the same kind has occurred more than
once to _rishis_ or very advanced _mahatmas_. As a rule, however, they
are too anxious to go to _nirvana_, to stay on earth a moment longer than
necessary, and prefer rather to come back at intervals: this, we all
know, has occurred at least six times in the case of Buddha, as Mr
Sinnett so well explains. At the same time Ushas announced without
words, but with a slight blush, and a smile of ineffable tenderness, that
from the day of my birth she knew that I was destined to be her future
husband, and that at the appointed time we should be brought together. We