Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/232

 city so attractive that thou hast so neglected those whom thou hast professed to love above all others?"

Robert hung his head and blushed like a school-boy detected in some naughty prank.

The keen-eyed old man looked at him closely for a moment, and seeing his perturbation, turned to the children, who had come to speak with him. The priest was a remarkable-looking man, who carried his threescore and ten years lightly. His face was a variable one. When it was bent, as now, over the little children, it was tender and full of light; so it looked when he walked among his Indians, to whose welfare he had devoted the greater part of his life. They had adopted him as a member of their tribe, and the name they had given him signified the affection in which they held him. His broad philanthropic brow, his large, kindly mouth, betrayed the lover of men, satisfied in giving up his life for their advancement; but the quick, restless dark eyes sometimes had a look of profound sorrow in their depths, of whose source Robert had often vainly conjectured. Madame Bienveillance, with her quicker womanly instinct, saw in this trait of melancholy, whose existence the priest would have eagerly denied, the result of some great trial or disappointment suffered during his life in that world which he now