THE MISSIONARY'S AVOCATION 119 



trol of a woman. What the leper women looked like in 

 the early days when I first took charge of the asylum is 

 hard to describe. They were so dirty, so careless of 

 their personal appearance, their faces so hopeless that 

 it did not seem right to call them women, and one strove 

 in vain for a word that adequately described them. 

 Frances, dressed in her beautiful, white flowing garments 

 as for some gala occasion, walked with her brother and 

 me into that awful place. She caught sight of some of 

 those creatures who sat gossiping under the shade of the 

 neem trees. Frances took one look, then she threw her 

 head on her brother 's shoulder and sobbed as though her 

 heart would break. ''My God," she cried, ''am I going 

 to become as they are ? Is that what is in store for me ?" 

 Her brother had to go back to his work and I had to go 

 back to mine and we must leave her in the Leper Asylum. 

 Frances was so distressed that I was afraid she might 

 attempt to destroy herself so I asked several of the old 

 men to guard the well and see she did not get into it. 

 A few days later my wife and I were over at the Asylum. 

 I said to Frances, "I deeply sympathize with you, I know 

 words are poor things to express what I feel for you in 

 this awful affliction. Yet in spite of it all, is this not 

 true? In that orphanage those American women 

 brought certain things into your life that have made it 

 richer and fuller and better than the lives of the other 

 women in the asylum?" She assented. I then con- 

 tinued, "How would it be for you to try to bring some 

 of those things out of your richer life and put them 

 into the lives of these other leper women and children?" 

 She promised to try. My wife fitted her out with sup- 

 plies. She started a little school. She taught the 

 women to sing, the children to read and write. She had 



