THIS was the time when Sandip Babu with his followers came to our
neighbourhood to preach __Swadeshi__.

There is to be a big meeting in our temple pavilion. We women
are sitting there, on one side, behind a screen. Triumphant
shouts of __Bande Mataram__ come nearer: and to them I am
thrilling through and through. Suddenly a stream of barefooted
youths in turbans, clad in ascetic ochre, rushes into the
quadrangle, like a silt-reddened freshet into a dry river-bed at
the first burst of the rains. The whole place is filled with an
immense crowd, through which Sandip Babu is borne, seated in a
big chair hoisted on the shoulders of ten or twelve of the
youths.

__Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram__! It seems
as though the skies would be rent and scattered into a thousand
fragments.

I had seen Sandip Babu's photograph before. There was something
in his features which I did not quite like. Not that he was bad-
looking--far from it: he had a splendidly handsome face. Yet, I
know not why, it seemed to me, in spite of all its brilliance,
that too much of base alloy had gone into its making. The light
in his eyes somehow did not shine true. That was why I did not
like it when my husband unquestioningly gave in to all his
demands. I could bear the waste of money; but it vexed me to
think that he was imposing on my husband, taking advantage of
friendship. His bearing was not that of an ascetic, nor even of
a person of moderate means, but foppish all over. Love of