As she was feeding him with eyes full of gentle commiseration his
lips framed the words, "You can talk to me."
She scarcely knew how to do this. There were questions she was eager
to ask, for his strange, exuberant happiness under the circumstances
were hard to understand, even after Dr. Ackley's explanation. She
had never seen religion produce any such results. Uncle Lusthah
seemed to her very sincere and greatly sustained in his faith, but
he had always been to her a sorrowful, plaintive figure, mourning
for lost kindred whom slavery had scattered. Like the ancient
prophets also, his heart was ever burdened by the waywardness of the
people whom he exhorted and warned. In young Waldo appeared a
joyousness which nothing could quench. From the moment she obtained
a clew to his unexpected behavior, everything in his manner accorded
with the surgeon's explanation. In his boyish face and expression
there was not a trace of the fanatical or abnormal. He seemed to
think of Heaven as he did of his own home, and the thought of going
to the one inspired much the same feeling as returning to the other.
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