for her own wear, to lay in a large store for the poor; and it is affirmed, by those who were long intimate with the family, that a supplicant was never known to pass her door without relief.  She even sought out, with the aid of a faithful domestic, the modest poor who were restrained by their feelings from intruding their necessities; and her liberal donations were distributed in so kind a manner, that even the pride of birth could never feel distressed when receiving her charitable assistance.

’This lady was much attached to the duties of her religion, and delighted in acquiring instruction from righteous persons of her own faith.  She showered favours on all the poor who were reported to live in the fear of God; indeed, such was the liberality, benevolence, and unvaried charity of this good lady, that the news of her death was received by hundreds of people as their greatest earthly calamity.  The example of this lady’s character is the more enhanced by reflecting on the retired way in which she was reared and lived, restrained by the customs of her people within the high walls of a zeenahnah, without the advantages of a liberal education or the immediate society of intelligent people.  She seems, by all accounts, to have been a most perfect pattern of human excellence.

’In forming her will (Villoiettee Begum had been a widow several years before her death), she does not appear to have wished a single thing to be done towards perpetuating her name,—­as is usual with the great, in erecting lofty domes over the deposited clay of the Mussulmaun,—­but her immense wealth was chiefly bequeathed in charitable gifts.  The holy and the humble were equally remembered in its distribution.  She had been acquainted with the virtues of the good Maulvee of Lucknow, to whom she left a handsome sum of money for his own use, and many valuable articles to fit up the Emaum-baarah for the service of Mahurrum, with a, desire that the same should be conveyed to him as soon after her death as convenient.  Her vakeel (agent) wrote to Meer Syaad Mahumud very soon after the lady’s death, to apprise him of the bequest Villoiettee Begum had willed to him, and at the same time forwarded the portable articles to him at Lucknow.

’The Maulvee was much surprised, and fancied there must be some mistake in the person for whom this legacy was intended, as the lady herself was entirely unknown to him, and an inhabitant of a station so remote from his own residence as not likely ever to have heard of him.  He, however, replied to the vakeel, and wrote also to a gentleman in the neighbourhood, desiring to have a strict inquiry instituted before he could venture to accept the riches of this lady’s bounty, presuming that even if he was the person alluded to in her will, that the Begum must have intended him as her almoner to the poor of Lucknow.  The good, upright Maulvee acted on the integrity of his heart and desired a strict scrutiny might be instituted