' affection for her and her sweet, kind
ways with them. "Sometimes when I am feeling down and home-sick, she
comes in like this and plays with the babies, and cheers us all up." The
Indian woman is very home-loving. Only devotion to the children could
have kept the nurses and Ponnamal so long in exile for their sake; and
there were times when even Ponnamal's brave heart sank. Then these
love-touches helped.

When the time came for the nursery party to leave Neyoor and return to
Dohnavur, after two and a half years in that hospitable mission, we were
sorry to part. Days like the days we had passed through test the stuff
of which souls are made, and they prove what we call friendship. After
the fire has spent itself, the fine gold shines out purified, and there
is something solemn in its light. We had grown close to our friends in
Neyoor; but the cloud had moved, so far as we could read the sign, and
it seemed right to return. The missionaries were away when the day came,
but the Christians surrounded Ponnamal with tokens of goodwill. "The
nursery has been like a little light in our midst," they said; and this
word cheered her more than all other words. And so farewelled, they
arrived home, all glad and warm with the glow that comes when hearts
meet each other and each finds the other kind.

CHAPTER XVII

In the Compound and Near it

[Illustration: THE OLD NURSERY. THE "ROOM OF JOY."]

"NOW I know why God put you in Dohnavur when He wanted this work done.
He hid you from the eyes of the world for the little children's sake. He
knew this work could never have been done by the road-side, so He hid
you."

The speaker was a Christian friend from Palamcottah, an Indian lawyer
who, for the first time, had come out to see us. He had found our
approaches appalling, and had wondered at first why we lived in such an
out-of-the-way place, three or four miles from the nearest road, and
twenty-four from civilisation. When he saw the children he understood.
Later, he helped us in an attempt to save two little ones in danger, and
insisted not only upon paying his own and our worker's expenses, but in
sending us a gift for the nurseries. With the gift came a letter full of
loving, Indian sympathy; and again he added as before: "The Lord hid you
in that quiet place for the little children's sake." Sometimes when the
inconveniences of jungle life press upon us, we remember our friend's
words: "This work could never have been