He came rather quickly, and the gentle serenity of his countenance was disturbed, but still a look of unutterable goodness rested upon it. When he reached Mary her eyes were flooded with tears, and she trembled from head to foot. His sympathy she could endure. His very look had opened the purest fountains of her heart again. She was not altogether alone.
“Crying, Mary, crying?” he said, in a tone of inquiry, rather than of reproach. “Who has taught you to weep?”
“Oh! father, father, what can I do? Where can I hide myself?” cried the poor girl, lifting her clasped hands piteously upward.
The missionary saw it all. For a moment the color left his lips, and his eyes were full of trouble to their azure depths. He sat down by her side, and drew her gently towards him.
“And this has driven you so far from home?” he said, smoothing her hair with one hand, which trembled among the golden tresses, for never had his sympathies been drawn more powerfully forth. “Who has done this cruel thing, Mary?”
She did not answer, but he felt a shudder pass over her frame as she made a vain effort to speak.
“Was it your playfellows at school?”
“I shall never have playfellows again,” broke from the trembling lips which seemed torn apart by the desolating words; “never again, for where does another girl like me live in the world? God has made no playfellow for me!”
The missionary allowed her to weep. He knew that a world of bitterness would be carried from her bosom with those tears.
“But God has made us for something better than playfellows to each other,” he said at last, taking her little hand in his.