She turned again, like a poor hunted hare as she was.
But what was her running to theirs? She was passing our
long fence in Fernando Street, and then for the first
time she screamed for help.
It was that scream which waked me.
She saw the steeple of the church. She had a dim
feeling that a church would be an asylum. So was it that
she ran up our alley, to find that she was in a trap
there.
And then it was that she fell against my door, that
she cried twice, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" and that the
good God, who had heard her, sent me to draw her in.
We had to learn her language, in a fashion, and she
to learn ours, before we understood her story in this
way. But at the very first my mother made out that the
girl had fled from savages who meant worse than death for
her. So she understood why she was so frightened at
every sound, and why at first she was afraid to stay with
us, yet more afraid to go.
But this passed off in a day or two. She took to my
mother with a sort of eager way which showed how she must
have loved her own mother, and how much she lost when she
lost her. And that was one of the parts of her sad story
that we understood.
No one, I think, could help loving my mother; but
here was a poor, storm-tossed creature who, I might say,
had nothing else to love, seeing she had lost all trace
of this brother, and here was my mother, soothing her,
comforting her, dressing her wounds for her, trying to
make her feel that God's world was not all wickedness;
and the girl in return poured out her whole heart.
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