e afterwards heard,
and prowled about outside the compound, watching for an opportunity to
carry the child off without our knowledge. But she was always with the
other children, so that plan failed. When first she heard they had come,
she fled to the bungalow. "My parents have come! My father is strong!
Oh, hide me! hide me!" she besought us. "I cannot resist him! I cannot!"
and she cried and clung to us. But when we went out to meet them, she
was perfectly quiet; and no one would have known from her manner as she
stood before them, and answered their questions, without a tremble in
her voice, how frightened she had been before.

"What is this talk about being a Christian?" the father demanded
stormily. "What can an infant know about such matters? Are you wiser
than your fathers, that their religion is not good enough for you?" And
scathing mockery followed, harder to bear than abuse. "Come! Say salaam
to the Missie Ammal, and bring your jewels" (she had taken them off),
"and let us go home together." The child stood absolutely still, looking
up with brave eyes; and to our astonishment said, as though it were the
only thing to be said: "But I am a Christian. I cannot go home."

We had not thought of her saying this. We had, indeed, encouraged her as
we had encouraged ourselves, to rest in our God, who is unto us a God of
deliverances; but we had not suggested any line of resistance, and were
not prepared for the calm refusal which so quietly took it for granted
that she had no power to refuse.

The father was evidently nonplussed. He knew his little daughter, a
timid child, whose translated name, Fawn, seems to express her exactly,
and he gazed down upon her in silence for one surprised moment, then
burst out in wrath and indignant revilings. "Snake! nurtured in the
bosom only to turn and sting! Vile, filthy, disgusting insect, born to
disgrace her caste!" And they cursed her as she stood.

Then their mood changed, and they tried pleadings, much more difficult
to resist. The father reminded her of his pilgrimage to a famous Temple
at her birth: "He had named her before the gods." Her mother touched on
tenderer memories, till we could feel the quiver of soul, and feared for
the little Fawn. Then they promised her liberty at home. She should read
her Bible, pray to the true God, "for all gods are one." I saw Fawn shut
her eyes for a moment. What she saw in that moment she told me
afterwards: a fire lighted on the floor