his. The children were under the worst influence; and both
were winning little things, who might have drifted anywhere. We have
found it impossible to refuse such little ones, even though danger of
the Temple kind may not be probable.

Such a child, for example, is the little girl the Moslem is ready to
adopt and convert to the faith. Our first redeemed from this captivity
(literally slavery under the name of adoption) was a cheerful little
person of six, with the sturdy air the camera caught, and a manner all
her own. An American missionary in an adjoining district heard of her
and her little sister, and wrote to know if we would take them if he
could save them. We could not say No; so he tried, and succeeded in
getting the elder child; the little one had been already "adopted," and
he could not get her. "The whole affair was the most astonishing thing I
have ever seen in India," he wrote when he sent the little girl. The
child upon arrival made friends with another, and confided to her in a
burst of confidence: "Ah, she was a jewel, my own little sister--not
like me, not dark of skin, but 'fair' and tender; and the great man in
the turban saw her and desired her, and he took her away; and she cried
and cried and cried, because she was only such a very little girl."

"The business was being discussed out in the open street"--the writer
was another missionary--"the pastor heard of it from a Christian who was
passing, and saw the cluster of Muhammadans round the mother and her
children. It was touch-and-go with the child." These two, Sturdy and
Stolid, side by side in the photograph, are in all ways quite unlike the
typical Temple child; but the danger from which they were delivered is
as real, and perhaps in its way as grave.

One of the sweetest of our little girls, a child with a spiritual
expression which strikes all who see her, came to us through a young
catechist who heard of her and persuaded her people to let her come to
Dohnavur. She is an orphan; and being "fair" and very gentle, needed a
mother's care. Her nearest relatives had families of their own, and were
not anxious for this addition to their already numerous daughters; and
the little girl, feeling herself unwanted, was fretting sadly. Then an
offer came to the relations--not made expressly in words, but
implied--by which they would be relieved of the responsibility of the
little niece's future. All would not have been straight for the child,
however,