"No, she is at home up in New Hampshire in a little quiet country town, but she is a wonderful mother."
"And have you no one else, no other family out here with you?"
Hazel did not realize how anxiously she awaited the answer to that question. Somehow she felt a jealous dislike of any one who might belong to him, even a mother—and a sudden thought of sister or wife who might share the little shanty cabin with him made her watch his face narrowly. But the answer was quick, with almost a shadow like deep longing on his face:
"Oh, no, I have no one. I'm all alone. And sometimes if it were not for mother's letters it would seem a great way from home."
The girl did not know why it was so pleasant to know this, and why her heart went out in instant sympathy for him.
"O-oo!" she said gently. "Tell me about your mother, please!"
And so he told her, as he walked beside her, of his invalid mother whose frail body and its needs bound her to a couch in her old New England home, helpless and carefully tended by a devoted nurse whom she loved and who loved her. Her great spirit had risen to the sacrifice of sending her only son out to the desert on his chosen commission.
They had been climbing a long sloping hill, and at the climax of the story had reached the top and could look abroad again over a wide expanse of country. It seemed to Hazel's city bred eyes as though the kingdoms of the whole world lay spread before her awed gaze. A brilliant sunset was spreading a great silver light behind the purple mountains in the west, red and blue in flaming lavishness, with billows of white clouds floating above, and over that in sharp contrast the sky was velvet black with storm. To the south the rain was falling in a brilliant shower like yellow gold, and to the east two more patches of rain were rosy pink as petals of some wondrous flowers, and arching over them a half rainbow. Turning slightly towards the north one saw the rain falling from dark blue clouds in great streaks of white light.
"Oh-oo!" breathed the girl; "how wonderful! I never saw anything like that before."
But the missionary had no time for answer. He began quickly to unstrap the canvas from behind the saddle, watching the clouds as he did so.