'Indeed, it is not,--my object and duty is to save and preserve them
[_sic_]; and I am come to dissuade you from this idle purpose, to
urge you to live, and to keep your family from the disgrace of being
thought your murderers.'
'I am not afraid of their ever being so thought: they have all, like
good children, done everything in their power to induce me to live
among them; and, if I had done so, I know they would have loved and
honoured me; but my duties to them have now ended. I commit them all
to your care, and I go to attend my husband, _Ummed Singh Upadhya_,
with whose ashes on the funeral pile mine have been already three
times mixed.'[5]
This was the first time in her long life that she had ever pronounced
the name of her husband, for in India no woman, high or low, ever
pronounces the name of her husband,--she would consider it
disrespectful towards him to do so; and it is often amusing to see
their embarrassment when asked the question by any European
gentleman. They look right and left for some one to relieve them from
the dilemma of appearing disrespectful either to the querist or to
their absent husbands--they perceive that he is unacquainted with
their duties on this point, and are afraid he will attribute their
silence to disrespect.
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