the dark
face expressed when she spoke in the familiar tongue. The truth was
that the poor fellow felt as if his gods had intervened, and the kind
little voice came from heaven itself. At once Sara saw that he had
been accustomed to European children. He poured forth a flood of
respectful thanks. He was the servant of Missee Sahib. The monkey was
a good monkey and would not bite; but, unfortunately, he was difficult
to catch. He would flee from one spot to another, like the lightning.
He was disobedient, though not evil. Ram Dass knew him as if he were
his child, and Ram Dass he would sometimes obey, but not always. If
Missee Sahib would permit Ram Dass, he himself could cross the roof to
her room, enter the windows, and regain the unworthy little animal.
But he was evidently afraid Sara might think he was taking a great
liberty and perhaps would not let him come.

But Sara gave him leave at once.

"Can you get across?" she inquired.

"In a moment," he answered her.

"Then come," she said; "he is flying from side to side of the room as
if he was frightened."

Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as
steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He
slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound.
Then he turned to Sara and salaamed again. The monkey saw him and
uttered a little scream. Ram Dass hastily took the precaution of
shutting the skylight, and then went in chase of him. It was not a very
long chase. The monkey prolonged it a few minutes evidently for the
mere fun of it, but presently he sprang chattering on to Ram Dass's
shoulder and sat there chattering and clinging to his neck with a weird
little skinny arm.

Ram Dass thanked Sara profoundly. She had seen that his quick native
eyes had taken in at a glance all the bare shabbiness of the room, but
he spoke to her as if he were speaking to the little daughter of a
rajah, and pretended that he observed nothing. He did not presume to
remain more than a few moments after he had caught the monkey, and
those moments were given to further deep and grateful obeisance to her
in return for her indulgence. This little evil one, he said, stroking
the monkey, was, in truth, not so evil as he seemed, and his master,
who was ill, was sometimes amused by him. He would have been made sad
if his favorite had run away and been lost. Then he salaamed once more
and got through the skylight and acro