Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/58

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SOME DISTINGUISHED INDIAN WOMEN.

to the sympathy felt for those whose cause she advocates so powerfully.

During the two years that Ramabai spent in America, she devoted her time and energy without ceasing to the work of helping her fellow-country-women. She visited different parts of the States, and spoke frequently at public meetings; and wherever she went her eloquence attracted a crowd of listeners, and her courage and perseverance commanded universal respect. A lady who was present at one of her meetings, wrote thus of her:—"Ramabai is strikingly beautiful; her face is a clear-cut oval; her eyes, large and dark, glow with feeling. She is a brunette, but her cheeks are full of colour. Her white widow's saree is drawn closely over her head and fastened under her chin."

Having at last collected sixty thousand rupees, a little more than four thousand pounds sterling, Ramabai considered she had sufficient to make a, beginning. She therefore left America, and reached Bombay on the 1st of February 1889. She lost no time in setting to work, and on the 11th of March opened her first home for widows, which she called Shardu Sadan—the "Home of Learning."[1] She is

  1. This has since been removed to Poona, and at the present time there are sixteen young widows in residence, mostly Brahmans, and an American lady has joined the Pundita, and is assisting her in the work.