Tue Lire Hisror¥ of AN East INDIAN. 141 
for anything not absolutely necessary. His father some- 
- times on Saturday buys sugar-cake for RAMPERSAUD’S 
young brothers and sisters, but a very little goes far and 
it is a very good equivalent for food at the price, hence 
RAMPERSAUD’S susceptibilities are not roused beyond a 
severe frown. 
At ten an important event takes place in RAMPER- | 
SAUD’S life of which he is the central figure. He has 
to be mated. A shipmate of his parents has a girl to 
dispose of, and a good deal of visiting and marching to 
and fro in a quiet way, at first mostly on Sundays,,has to 
be accomplished before things pertaining to the disposal 
of the girl can be settled satisfa€torily, Third parties of 
the “ parson” order are very much to the fore, and much 
talk, interlarded—as far as the “ parsons” are concerned— 
with many semi-religious aphorisms from the Holy books 
has to be listened to before details are reached. A little 
feast (in any case a meal) accompanies each of these 
funétions. An outsider might think the girl’s guardians 
most intractable and obdurate bargain makers, judging 
from the number of these visits to and fro, and the sum of 
state ceremony and etiquette entailed, but they are any- 
thing but that. LUCHMAN’S boy is healthy, good tem- 
pered, and has fair prospeéts, which is all the girl’s 
parents care for, but custom and religion requires all this 
observance, at least the “ parsons” say so, and LUCHMAN 
though he “says things” with a careless freedom be- 
gotten of living in such a free country as this, and under 
the direét influence of such Anglicising surroundings as 
obtain here, has nothing like the courage necessary to 
assert himself and send the “ parsons” to the right about. 
More than this, something within him—be it hereditary 
