and departed.

Next morning he came again, anxious and cast down in countenance. I had
to keep him waiting; and when I came out, he was standing beside my
verandah steps, head on one side, eyes shut, hands folded as if in
prayer. "Well, Yosepu, what is it?" "Amma! the light of your eyes
revives me!" "Well, tell me the trouble." "All yesterday I saw you not;
it was a starless night to me!" This is merely the preface. "But,
Yosepu, what is wrong?" "Tingalu, that golden child with a voice like a
bird, she lies on her mat. I am concerned about the babe," (Tingalu,
turned four, is as hardy as a gipsy), "I fear for her delicate interior.
Those ignorant children" (the convert nurses would have been pleased if
they had heard him) "know nothing at all. It may be they will feed her
with curry and rice this morning. That would be dangerous. Amma! Let her
have bread and milk, _and I will pay for it_!"

Yosepu came a few days ago with a request for a doll. "Who for?" "For
myself." "But are you going to play with it?" Yosepu acknowledged he
was, and he wished it to have genuine hair, a pink silk frock, and eyes
that would open and shut. We had not anything so elaborate to give him,
and he had to be contented with a black china head and painted eyes; but
he was pleased, and took it away carefully rolled up in his turban, which
serves conveniently for head-gear, towel, scarf, and duster. When and
where he plays with the doll no one knows, but he assures us he does;
and we have mentally reserved the first pink silk, with eyes that will
open and shut, that a benevolent public sends to us, for Yosepu. . . .
The words were hardly written when a shadow fell across the paper, and
the unconscious subject of this chapter remarked as I looked up: "1
Corinthians vii. 31." "Do you want anything, Yosepu?" "Amma! 1
Corinthians vii. 31." "Well, Yosepu?" "As it is written in that chapter,
and that verse: 'The fashion of this world passeth away.' Amma, if
within the next two months a visitor comes to Dohnavur carrying a
picture-catching box, I desire that you arrange for the catching of my
picture. This, Amma, is my desire."

The Western mind is very dense; and for a moment I could not see the
connection between the text and the photograph. Yosepu is never
impatient. He squatted down beside me, dropped his turban round his
neck, held his left foot with his left hand, and emphasised his
explanation with his right.

"Amma, the wise know that life i