not critical.

Helen received the news of all this from her mother when she came back
from Bauer's tent. She was much shocked at the account Mrs. Douglas
gave. And again, as during the night, she found herself dwelling more
over Van Shaw's suffering than Bauer's heroism.

The doctor advised two days' rest for Bauer before starting back to
Tolchaco, so Clifford delayed the preparations for their start and
during that time Talavenka came to see Helen, and Helen, with her
accustomed enthusiasm, suggested to her in Esther's presence, a plan for
going east and completing her education.

Talavenka listened with perfect equanimity to Helen's glowing account of
the opportunities for education in the girls' school at Milton. Then she
said with more than a quiet manner,--it was a poise of all the
faculties, that a white person seldom possesses:

"You are kind, but I ought to stay here with my mother for awhile. She
needs me."

"But would she not be willing to have you go away for a little while
just to gain more power for your people? Mother, would you be willing to
have Talavenka stay with us this winter?"

"I have already talked with your father and Mr. and Mrs. Masters about
Talavenka and we are ready to take her into our home and treat her like
one of our own circle," said Esther, who was chairman of the missionary
committee in her church and a great enthusiast in all forms of
missionary work.

Talavenka turned her black eyes to Mrs. Douglas. Her face shone. The
light of her Christian faith illuminated her countenance like a gleam of
sunshine. It was so marked that both Mrs. Douglas and Helen were
startled by it.

"I do not know how to thank you. But my mother needs me this winter. I
must stay with her."

She said it so gently, with such a complete sense of joyousness and an
absence of all thought of renunciation, that Helen was profoundly moved.
There was no possibility of changing her mind or insisting. There was
something about Talavenka's simple statement that was distinctly final.

When the girl rose to go, Helen noticed the reddish brown water jar that
Talavenka had dropped by the tent opening when she had entered.

"Yes," she said, as she put the jar on her back after passing the cord
through the ears of it, "I am going down to the spring. How glad I am to
be so well. Jesus helps me to bear all things."

She went out and half an hour later, Helen, lying on her cot outside the
tent, saw her again coming u