ct for the bereaved parents.

And there in the open doorway, in his shirt sleeves, crouched low upon
the step, sat the head of the house, his swarthy face bowed upon his
knees, a picture of utter despair, and just beyond the mother's head was
bowed upon her folded arms on the window seat, and thus they mourned in
public silence before their little world.

Ruth's heart went out to the two poor ignorant creatures in their grief
as she remembered the little dark child with the brown curls and glorious
eyes who had resembled one of Raphael's cherubs, and thought how empty
the mother's arms would be without him.

"Oh, Sanda, tell your mother how sorry I am!" she said to the little
girl, for the mother could not speak or understand English. "Tell her not
to mourn so terribly, dear. Tell her that the dear baby is safe and happy
with Jesus! Tell her she will go to Him some day."

And as the little girl interpreted her words, suddenly Ruth knew that
what she was speaking was truth, truth she might have heard before but
never recognized or realized till now.

The mother lifted her sorrowful face all tear swollen and tried a pitiful
smile, nodded to say she understood, then dropped sobbing again upon the
window sill. The father lifted a sad face, not too sober, but blear-eyed
and pitiful, too, in his hopelessness, and nodded as if he accepted the
fact she had told but it gave him no comfort, and then went back to his
own despair.

Ruth turned away with aching heart, praying: "Oh, God, they need you!
Come and comfort them. I don't know how!" But somehow, on her homeward
way she seemed to have met and been greeted by her Saviour.

It was so she received her baptism for the work that she was to do.

The next day permission came for her to go to France, and she entered
upon her brief training.

"Don't you dread to have her go?" asked a neighbor of Aunt Rhoda.

"Oh, yes," sighed the good lady comfortably, "but then she is going in
good company, and it isn't as if all the best people weren't doing it. Of
course, it will be great experience for her, and I wouldn't want to keep
her out of it. She'll meet a great many nice people over there that she
might not have met if she had stayed at home. Everybody, they tell me, is
at work over there. She'll be likely to meet the nobility. It isn't as if
we didn't have friends there, too, who will be sure to invite her over
week ends. If she gets tired she can go to them, you know. And rea