Def.- Expressing or feeling or resulting from compassion.
Syn.- pity, affecitonate, compassionate, concerned
"When he stood in the door-way with his soldier's clothes on his back with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds, he had seen two years leaving their hot trails on his mother's scarred cheecks."
-The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
the narrator of this passage used a sympathetic tone to draw our attention towards the feelings of the mother. It gives off the feeling as if you are losing someone close to you and may never know if they may return or not. The feelings invoked by the tears running down the mother's face give as the condition the mother is in now, knowing that her son is leaving for war.