the bare earth, in the little time when she was not telling the name of Siva on her beads, and her right arm grew marked and worn with the constant pressure of her rosary. Her hair was matted, and for food she seemed to take no thought.
How long this course of life had lasted, she herself knew not, when one day a Brahmin beggar passed that way, and stopped at her door to beg for food.
Uma, always pitiful as a mother to the needs of others, though she appeared to have none of her own, hastened to give him alms. But when he had received her dole, the beggar seemed desirous of lingering awhile to chat.
"Lady, for whose sake can you be practising such a course of penance?" he asked. "You are young and fair. Methinks this is the life of one old or disappointed that you lead. Whose love draws you to live thus?"
"My heart," she replied, "is all for Siva."
"Siva!" said the beggar, "but surely He is a queer fellow! Why, He seems to be poorer than poverty, and a dreamer of dreams. I trust indeed, Lady, that your heart is not given to that Madman!"
"Ah," said Uma, sighing gently, "you speak thus because you do not understand! The actions of the great are often unaccountable to the common mind. The ways of Mahadeva may well be beyond your ken!"
