“Thy Miriam looks very worn and sad.”
“Yes; and that, of course, makes me love her more. She has lost her only child, and she does not seem to have quite found our Christ.”
“Child,” said Damaris, “our Christ is everything to thee?”
“Yes,” replied Ethne, simply, “He is everything. We are Christians.”
“Could you not tell Miriam of Him?” said Damaris.
“I tried,” was Ethne’s answer; “and she wept, and said she saw I had found the Messiah, who is called the Christ, and that it gave me a wonderful joy. There was no need to say much. She saw. But,” she added, “Patrick told us there are two Testaments of God. And Miriam seems only to know the first, the beginning; she has not learned the end yet.”
“The Testaments of God are all your learning?” Damaris said.
“They are the only books we know,” Ethne replied.
“Happy child,” said Damaris, “to have had only the fountains to drink from.”
“But here, where the fountains have been overflowing, they say, so long,” replied Ethne, “we are hoping to learn so much! And then, if ever we go home again——” But there she stopped; the words would not come.