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with laughter, no doubt at my crestfallen face.
    "Come with me," I said, recovering myself. "You shall see them, excesses or not."
    "For a few minutes only, I am busy," he replied, and as I picked up my basket he peered in. "I see you collect dung and take it with you. Is it not for the land?"
    "Indeed no. Dung is too useful in our homes to be given to the land, for it is fuel to us and protection against damp and heat and even ants and mice. Did you not know?"
    "Too well," he answered shortly. "I have seen your women forever making dung cakes and burning them and smearing their huts. Yet I thought you would know better, who live by the land yet think of taking from it without giving."
    "What substitute then?" I said quietly.
    He made no reply but came after me. All the children were awake, waiting for their morning meal of rice water. Nathan was working in the fields, and I sent one of the boys to call him in. For Kenny I spread a mat and he sat down while we grouped ourselves about him, but I could see he was not accustomed to sitting crosslegged on the floor, for his knees instead of resting on the mat sprang up aslant like the horns of a bull, and 1 was uncomfortable for him, and distressed that I had nothing else to offer.
    Ira strained the rice water into wooden bowls for us -- the rice itself we kept for our midday meal -- but to one bowl she added a handful of the cooked rice and a little salt, which we could not afford for ourselves, and this she handed to Kenny, stooping low and keeping her eyes down.
    "My daughter Irawaddy," I said, proud that she should know her duties to a guest.
    Kenny took the bowl from her with a smile.
    "You are a good cook for one so young," he said, laying his hand for a moment on her head. She did not raise her eyes, but her face kindled, and I was pleased too that he should notice my child. He spoke to each of the others in turn until Murugan, my third son, came bouncing in leading his father by the hand.
    "You have heard me tell of Kenny often enough," I said. "This is he, friend to my father's house." So much I said, and left the other unsaid.
    My husband made namaskar.
    "I have," he replied formally, "and I am happy that he should honour our poor household by his presence."
    "Yet not so poor," the other replied politely, "for the women of your house do you credit, and you have begotten five healthy sons."
    My heart quailed at his words for fear he should betray me, yet no betrayal, since how could he guess my husband did not know I had gone to him for treatment? Why had I, stupidest of women, not told him? I waited, gnawing my lip, but he said no more.
    Kenny came often to our house thereafter. Of himself he did not speak, of wife or children or parents or home. I held my tongue, for I felt to ask would be to offend him. Yet he had a love for children; mine were always eager to see him, making great fuss of him when he came, and he for his part would suffer them patiently, often bringing with him half a coconut, or ladus made of nuts and rolled into balls with jaggery, which the children loved. Once he came when I was suckling Selvam, my youngest son, who had turned three, and saw that my breasts were sore where the child's mouth had been.
    "The boy is long past weaning," he said frowning. "Why do you force it?"
    "We had to sell our goat," I said. "I can no longer afford to buy milk, but while my son is young and needs it I will give it to him."
    Thereafter he brought me a little cow's milk when he could, or sent it with one of the children from the village, who were always glad to help him, for he had a way of attracting children; there was ever a troop following him about.
    As before, he came and went mysteriously. I knew little beyond the fact that he worked among the people of the tannery, treating and healing their bodies during long hours and then going to his lone dwelling; but when he left the village, for days or years at a time, nobody knew where he went or what he did, and