now you have come and the dawn comes with
you."
Her glad, thankful glance met his; the latent grace and mobility of her nature, all roused and vivid under his influence, transfigured her face, making it deli cately lovely. A great pang of longing surged through him.
"Oh," he thought, "had I not become a missionary, I might have met and loved some one like her! I might have filled my life with much that is now gone from it forever!"
For eight years he had seen only the faces of savage women and still more savage men; for eight years his life had been steeped in bitterness, and all that was tender or romantic in his nature had been cramped, as in iron fetters, by the coarseness and stolidity around him. Now, after all that dreary time, he met one who had the beauty and the refinement of his own race. Was it any wonder that her glance, the touch of her dress or hair, the soft tones of her voice, had for him an indescribable charm? Was it any wonder that his heart went out to her in a yearning tenderness that although not love was dangerously akin to it?
He was startled at the sweet and burning tumult of emotion she was kindling within him. What was he thinking of? He must shake these feelings off, or leave her. Leave her! The gloom of the savagery that awaited him at the camp grew tenfold blacker than ever. All the light earth held for him seemed gathered into the presence of this dark-eyed girl who sat talking so musically, so happily, by his side.
"I must go," he forced himself to say at length. "The sun is almost down."
