40 the outskirts of the village, and I will proceed thither under cover of the night, and give you the wedding necklace. Elevated by hope, the youth thought it long before the night arrived. At this juncture, the return of his father covered his expectations with gloom, for the servant Kartik had overheard the engagement. To secure the wedding necklace for himself, he revealed the matter to the pundit, who on hearing it, became distracted. But Kartik said “what occasion is there for all this grief ? Direct your son to place the pre*sents you have received in the chamber, and I will close the door upon him ; if he be thus shut up, the necklace cannot be given to him to-night, and the princess will be liberated from her promise.” Following the advice of the servant, the pundit gave his son those directions, and inimediately on hisentering the room, the servant closed the door" and the father locked it. The night having arrived, the servant Kartik himself went at the appointed hour to the temple as the substitute of the pundit's son. Soon after the princess arrived, with the wedding necklace in her hand, decked out in the most splendid manner, anà illuminating the dark temple, like the full-orbed moon. Then circumambulating the image of
