She stood in the sunlight, her cheeks vividly red, her eyes wide with excitement and with fright. It was that fearful, piteous something about her whole attitude which from the first reached and appealed instantly to the sympathies of the minister.
“You wish to speak to me?” he asked.
“Yaes,” she said, nodding her head, and then very swiftly, as though she had learned the words by rote—“I am convert unto you, Excellency.”
“Convert!” His eyes kindled and he stared at her without speaking a moment. Her head drooped, as if from its own small weight.
“Yaes,” she said in the lowest, the faintest of voices, “I am convert—Chlistian!”
He seized both her hands, and held them warmly in his own.
“Come into my house, my child,” he said. “Let us talk it over.”
Her hands fluttered in his, then she suddenly withdrew them. They slipped back into her sleeves. She stood uncertainly before him, hesitating to pass through the gate he had opened for her.
“Come!” he urged gently.