# Indira and Other Stories/Radharani/Chapter 3

III.
Five years have elapsed, and Radharani is now an extremely comely young woman of sixteen. But she is carefully confined to the feminine apartments. No male has seen her budding charms. Yet, even to the most advanced minds, the time has come to settle upon an alliance for the lovely young heiress. Her guardian was of opinion that the girl's own wishes should be consulted. In order to sound ​his ward, the lawyer sent for his own daughter, Vasanta Kumari, who had long been Radharani's friend and playmate. The two girls were of the same age and devotedly attached to one another. Kamakhya Babu directed Vasanta to sound her friend on the subject that now began to give him no little anxiety. Vasanta, somewhat bashfully, but with a merry smile on her lips, asked her father,
"Is there such a person as Rukmini Kumar Ray?"
Kamakhya Babu was puzzled, and said, "No, not that I know of. Why do you ask?"
Vasanta answered, "Because Radharani will not marry anyone except Rukmini Kumar Ray."
The good lawyer was much disturbed.
"What is that you say?" he cried. "How should Radharani make the acquaintance of a young man who is unknown to me?"
Vasanta laughed mischievously. She had repeatedly heard the story of the adventure on the way home from the Car Festival, and told ​the tale at length to her father, who was much impressed by the delicate generosity of the unknown Rukmini Kumar.
"But tell her from me, my girl," he added, "that she has fallen into a deplorable error. Tell her that marriage is not a matter of gratitude. It is right and proper, I admit, that she should be grateful to this generous stranger, and if time and occasion serve, it is fitting that she should show her gratitude in some suitable fashion. But to give herself in marriage to him is a different thing altogether. We know neither his caste nor his condition, his age nor his means. In all probability he is a married man with a family. What likelihood is there, then, that he will be in a position to marry Radharani?"
"Well, but, father," answered Vasanta, "Radharani knows all this just as well as you and I do. But ever since that night the girl has made for herself a mental image of her protector and has set it up in her heart. As others do daily worship to their family gods, so Radharani daily worships her idol. During the ​five years that she has been under our roof, I doubt if a single day has gone by without her mentioning him to me. If you marry her to anyone else, I promise you that her husband will not be a happy man."
"Dear me, dear me," thought the lawyer, "this is the green sickness of a romantic maid, a case calling for medicine. But the first medicine, it seems to me, is to find the mysterious Rukmini Kumar."
Accordingly the good man set to work to find the generous stranger. He made personal enquiries himself. He set his friends to work to search on his behalf. He wrote innumerable letters to all his many clients all over the country. He inserted an advertisement in all the newspapers. The advertisement was thus worded:
'Will Babu Rukmini Kumar Ray kindly arrange for an interview with the undersigned on a matter of much importance? The undersigned begs to assure him that the result is likely to be to his advantage.'
But all these energetic measures were of no ​avail. Days, months, nay, years, slipped by and Rukmini Kumar still remained a mystery. Then Radharani suffered another grievous bereavement. Her kind friend and guardian also died. This loss caused her the deepest grief. She felt herself to be orphaned a second time. After the funeral and attendant ceremonies were over, she took up her abode in her family home, and assumed the personal charge of the responsibilities of her estate, which had much increased under Kamakyha Babu's watchful and intelligent care.
Immediately after her estate came into her own hands, the young heiress made over two lakhs of rupees to the government, with the request that an asylum and hospital for poor and needy people should be founded in her native village, to be known as "The Rukmini Kumar Prasad" or Benefaction.
The government officials were somewhat surprised at the proposed title, but that was of course the generous donor's business. The asylum was duly constructed and inaugurated. ​In the time of her poverty, her mother had left her own village and had built her little cottage at the distant village of Srirampar. Why? Because she felt that it would be painful, in her poverty, to live in the place where she had been prosperous and happy. Their ancestral home was in a village which I shall take the liberty of calling Rajpur, lest I should give a clue to the identity of my heroine. It was in Rajpur in face of her own dwelling, that Radharani commemorated her sufferings and gratitude by erecting the poor-house, which was speedily filled with the needy and unfortunate from many miles around.