neighbours remaining with the bereaved girl. When Kunda saw that they
had taken her father away, she became convinced of his death, and
gave way to ceaseless weeping.

In the morning the neighbour returned to her own house, but sent her
daughter Champa to comfort Kunda Nandini.

Champa was of the same age as Kunda, and her friend. She strove to
divert her mind by talking of various matters, but she saw that Kunda
did not attend. She wept constantly, looking up every now and then
into the sky as though in expectation.

Champa jestingly asked, "What do you see that you look into the sky a
hundred times?"

Kunda replied, "My mother appeared to me yesterday, and bade me go
with her, but I feared to do so; now I mourn that I did not. If she
came again I would go: therefore I look constantly into the sky."

Champa said, "How can the dead return?"

To which Kunda replied by relating her vision.

Greatly astonished, Champa asked, "Are you acquainted with the man and
woman whose forms you saw in the sky?"

"No, I had never seen them. There cannot be anywhere a man so
handsome; I never saw such beauty."

On rising in the morning, Nagendra inquired of the people in the