here. Who were they that they should withstand
it? A telegram told us the children were safe, and next day we had them
here.

The baby was happy at once; but the elder little one, then a child of
about three and a half, was very sorrowful. She was so pitifully
frightened, too, that at first we could do nothing with her; and there
was a look in her eyes that alarmed us, it was so distraught and
unchildlike. "My mother did her best for them," wrote the kind
schoolmaster to whose house the children had been taken when the Temple
woman gave them up; "but the elder one has fever. She is always
muttering to herself, and can neither stand nor sit." She could stand
and sit now, only there was the "muttering," and the terrible look of
bewilderment worse than pain. For days it was a question with us as to
whether she would ever recover perfectly. That first night we had to
give her bromide, and she woke very miserable. Next day she stood by the
door waiting for her mother, as it seemed; for under her breath she was
constantly whispering, "Amma! Amma!" ("Mother! Mother!") She never cried
aloud, only sobbed quietly every now and then. She would not let us
touch her, but shrank away terrified if we tried to pet her. All through
the third day she sat by the door. This was better than the weary
standing, but pitiful enough. On the morning of the fourth day she sat
down again for a long watch; but once when her little hand went up to
brush away a tear, we saw there was a toy in it, and that gave us hope.
That night she went to bed with a doll, an empty tin, and a ball in her
arms; and the next day she let us play with her in a quiet, reserved
fashion. Next morning she woke happy.

The babies teach us much, and sometimes their unconscious lessons
illuminate the deeper experiences of life. One such illumination is
connected in my mind with the little trellised verandah, shown in the
photograph, of the cottage used as a nursery when Mala and Seela came to
us.

It was the hour between lights, and five babies under two years old were
waiting for their supper--Seela, Tara, and Evu (always a hungry baby),
Ruhinie, usually irrepressible, but now in very low spirits, and a tiny
thing with a face like a pansy--all five thinking longingly of supper.
These five had to wait till the fresh milk came in, as their food was
special; that evening the cows had wandered home with more than their
usual leisureliness from their pasture out in the jungle