illa caught a new light on Margaret's
character. They landed at a tiny village across the lake and wandered
about, Margaret talking easily to the people in their own tongue,
Priscilla straining to follow by watching faces and gestures. While they
stood so, discussing the price of some corals, a little child came close
to them and slipped a deliciously dimpled, but very dirty little hand in
Margaret's. At the touch the girl started, turned first crimson and then
pale, and looked down. Suddenly her eyes deepened and glowed.

"The darling!" she whispered, and bent to catch what the child was
saying. Presently she looked up, tears dimming her eyes, and said to
Priscilla, "She says a new baby came to their house last night. She
wanted to tell--me!"

"And ten already have been there," broke in a brown-faced native woman.

"But she is glad, and she wanted _me_ to know! Come, my sweet, tell me
more about the baby, and then we will go and see it."

They sat down under a clump of trees, and the dirty little maid nestled
close to Margaret, while with uplifted head and unabashed confidence she
told of the mystery.

Priscilla watched Margaret Moffatt's face. She was almost awed by the
change that had come over it. The aloofness and pride which often marked
it had disappeared as if by magic; the tenderness, passionate in its
intentness, cast upon the little child, moved her to wonder and
admiration. Later they went to the poor hovel and bent beside the humble
bed on which the mother and child lay. Then it was that Priscilla played
her part and made comfortable and grateful the overburdened creature,
worn and weak from suffering.

"'Twas the good God who sent you," murmured she.

"'Twas your little maid," smiled Margaret, tucking a roll of bills under
the hard, lumpy pillow. "Take time to love the babies--leave other
things--but love them and enjoy them."

"Yes, my lady."

On the way back in the boat Margaret was very silent for a time as she
watched Priscilla row; finally she said:

"Did it surprise you--my show of feeling for the--the child?"

"It was very beautiful. I did not know you cared so much for children,
and this one was so--dirty."

"But so real! You see I have never had real children in my life. The
kinds passed out to nice girls like me were sad travesties. Since I saw
the darling of to-day I've been wondering--do not laugh, Priscilla--but
I've been wondering what poor, cheated little morsel of humanity, in