one,' so ran my dreams, 'who speaks with her soft voice, whose lips possess the cool sweetness of her smile, whose brow like hers is radiant with angelic light, whose eyes have her tender appeal, I shall know that she is the one destined to share my life. May she be as loving and as devoted as my Didi! May all her actions, like my Didi's, shine with the sublime splendour of a wonderful soul! May she accept and prize me above and beyond all happiness and misery, all good and evil, and all right and wrong, in this life!'
Was this the same person whose first waking thought now was of someone else's words, whose fancy dwelt on a face as different from Didi's as night is from day? Only six days before if my Genius had come and warned me of such a contingency, I should have laughed in his face and said, 'Great All-knower, thanks for thy good wishes! You need not trouble yourself about my happiness. My heart knows what true gold is, and I will never be taken in by brass, however glittering.'
And yet brass did come in all its glory. There in the innermost chamber of my heart where my Annada Didi's blessings had been a shower of purest gold, some unforeseen influence made me clutch at this brass.
I plainly see that those of my critics who cannot brook any weakness are getting impatient: they will say, 'What is it that you wish to say in such tortuous language, after all? Why not out with it at once? It is this,—that on waking that morning you found your mind irresistibly calling up the image of Piari's face. that you found a longing for the very person whom at first you had contemptuously sought to brush aside, isn't that so? Well, if that is all, don't bring Annada Didi's name into the
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