Anna Lombard, page 39 by Victoria Cross
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ea or theory of hers, or else a continuation of some argument or theory started in mine. Her first letter, too, had filled me with more hope than I had had since I had left her. It seemed full of a sorrow at my departure that she did not like exactly to express, but yet managed to indicate very clearly, she thanked me for the ring, and said that she wore it on the middle finger of her right hand, and wound up her letter with:
"Why didn't you wake me?"
Altogether, so far, life in Burmah did not seem absolutely insupportable to me, and I grew deeply interested in my judicial work. I made headway in the language and watched everything, noted everything, and stored up all the native lore and knowledge of native life with which to surprise and please Anna in that far distance when we were to meet again. She was deeply interested in all that I told her of my Burmese friends, and every incident that was unusual or striking of my crowded court-room made the back-bone of a diverting story for her. One instance, however, I forbore to mention, though it was a great deal more to my credit than some others. On a certain Monday morning, when there had been an unusual number of cases, and I was wearied out in the heavy atmosphere before the lunch hour arrived, a case came before me of abduction, of which the facts elicited, at length, from a mist of lies, were as follows:
A low-caste Hindu woman had married a low-caste Burman, and their daughter, a low-caste hybrid, had been married and left a widow before she was eleven years old. Her husband's mother thereupon used her, according, indeed, to Hindu custom, as a household drudge, and endeavored to add to the cheerfulness of her existence by frequent blows and a scarcity of nourishment. The Burmese father, of the mild, gentle Burmese disposition, unable to bear the pitiful tale of his daughter's woes, summoned up courage, with several of his friends, to effect a forcible abduction of the girl, and had rescued her from the old woman's clutches. Hence the suit