CHAPTER VII.

Sister Agatha lost not a moment.  “Rejoice, dear Carmen,” she said.  “A Brother has just arrived who brings intelligence that your father still lives!” And with a most unwonted excitement in her manner, she led Carmen to the door of the sitting-room.  Tremblingly the girl entered, and saw by the clear light of the lamp an old, bent man who had, at this moment, no power to rise to his feet, but could only stretch out his longing arms to his dearly-loved daughter.  The next moment she lay sobbing on his breast.  The child had not forgotten the sweet expression of those eyes, and she read in the dear features the fact that she was not an orphan.

“Father! my dear, dear father!”

His eyes bedewed her brow with tears of joy as with loving tones he murmured again and again:  “My child! my darling!” In her warm embrace he again felt the happiness which had been denied him during so many weary years.  After a little while, he gently turned her face up towards him, and examined her features.

“Just like Inez!  You are your mother over again, as I first saw her under the palms and fell in love with her.  In you I have found both of my lost ones!” he said, and he smiled through happy tears.

“You will stay with me now, dear father?  You will never leave me again?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes, I will remain here, Carmen, in the dear old home, where I have come, a worn-out pilgrim to rest.”

“Poor father! how much you must have endured, working so far away from us all!  You have been all alone, no one to succor or help you; and nothing has been heard of you for so long; all efforts to find you have proved useless,” said Carmen, as she lovingly stroked the withered cheek.  “You had vanished so utterly that they all gave you up as dead; only my heart could never believe it.  Why have you never sent us any tidings?”

“I did indeed send some, my child, but they never reached you.  I was on the banks of the Ganges at the time, but shortly afterwards I went farther into the country, towards the north, attempting to penetrate a defile in the Himalayas.  There the savages seized me and made me a slave.  For years I have served in the most menial and degrading capacity; my tired back often bruised with their lashes, and only the stony ground on which to rest.  At length I escaped on horseback, and succeeded in reaching the Mongolian steppes.  There I have been wandering about, with various tribes, for two years; have tended their flocks and performed the commonest labor; all the time trying to teach them the Gospel.  But only the spirit of unrest reigned within me, and an intense longing impelled me to turn my face homeward.  So I took my staff and passed on foot through Siberia, into Russia, begging my way from door to door.  I, who possess hundreds of thousands!  Finally I reached Sarepta, ragged