The children danced round and round it, and the
higher the flames shot up, the greater was their merriment. After that,
Pramathanath gave up his sip of tea and bits of toast in Anglo-Indian
houses, and once again sat inaccessible within the castle of his house,
while his insulted friends went about from the door of one Englishman to
that of another, bending their turbaned heads as before.
By an irony of fate, poor Nabendu Sekhar married the second daughter of
this house. His sisters-in-law were well educated and handsome. Nabendu
considered he had made a lucky bargain. But he lost no time in trying to
impress on the family that it was a rare bargain on their side also. As
if by mistake, he would often hand to his sisters-in-law sundry letters
that his late father had received from Europeans. And when the cherry
lips of those young ladies smiled sarcastically, and the point of a
shining dagger peeped out of its sheath of red velvet, the unfortunate
man saw his folly, and regretted it.
Labanyalekha, the eldest sister, surpassed the rest in beauty and
cleverness.
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