She put her arm about his head.

God knows how lonely the poor child was when she drew the dog so warmly to her heart: not for his master's sake alone; but it was all she had.

He grew tired at last, and whined, trying to get out.
"Will you go, Tige ?" she said, and opened the window.
He jumped out, and she watched him going towards town.

Such a little thing, it was! But not even a dog "called her nearest and best." Let us be silent; the story of the night is not for us to read.

Do you think that He, who in the far, dim Life holds the worlds in His hand, knew or cared how alone the child was?
What if she wrung her thin hands, grew sick with the slow, mad, solitary tears ?--was not the world to save, as Knowles said?
He, too, had been alone; He had come unto His own, and His own received him not: so, while the struggling world rested, unconscious, in infinite calm of right, He came close to her with human eyes that had loved, and not been loved, and had suffered with that pain.