The History of Humāyūn (Gulbadan Begam) 3.5.3

3.5.3

Gul-badan gives amusing particulars of her own arrival, all of which she shall be left to tell. She followed Maham into Agra on the 28th, not having been allowed to travel with her through the previous night. Then she saw her father. Of him she can have kept only a dim memory, and it is likely enough she would stand in some awe of him and his deeds, but no word he has written suggests that a child needed to fear him, and she soon experienced 'happiness such that greater could not be imagined.' Happy child! and happy father, too! who recovered such a clever and attractive little daughter. It is not only her book that lets us know she had a lively mind, but the fact of its composition at an age when wits are apt to be rusted by domestic peace. Only a light that was strong in childhood would have burned so long to guide her unaccustomed pen after half a century of life, and only a youth of happy thoughts and quick perceptions have buoyed her, still gay and vivacious, across the worries and troubles of Humayun's time.