What is your father's business ?" The question was an impertinence, but Ruth was not aware of that.
"Souls," she answered, drily.
"A missioner! That illuminates everything." The spinster's face actually became warm.

"You will finish your education in the East and return.

I see." "No.

I shall never come back." Something in the child's voice, something in her manner, warned the spinster that her well-meaning inquisitiveness had received a set-back and that it would be dangerous to press it forward again.
What she had termed illuminative now appeared to be only another phase of the mystery which enveloped the child.

A sinister thought edged in.