“Nine and a half,” put in Marty.
“In the meantime you can be doing as much as possible for missions at home.”
“Yes,” said Marty, wiping her eyes and looking comforted, “that's so. We needn't think of my going away yet, and I s'pose the right way is to do as Miss Agnes says. She says the best way in mission work, as in everything else, is just to do the nearest thing and do it as well as we possibly can, and then be willing to let God lead us along from one step to another.”
“She is certainly right,” said Mrs. Ashford.
“I have taken some steps since Edith got me started, haven't I? I've learned a good deal about missions, and I find it a great deal easier to give money regularly now than when I began. Don't you remember how at first I either wanted to give every cent I had or else not to give anything? But I found out that wasn't the best way to do.”
“And another thing,” said Mrs. Ashford, “you have been the means of some of the rest of us taking steps. Seeing how well your systematic giving is working, I have started in to do the same way.”
“Oh! have you, mamma?” exclaimed Marty. “Are you going to have a box for tenths? How delightful!”
“No, not a box—my square Russia-leather pocketbook. And not tenths exactly, but what you call the New Testament way.”
“That's just lovely!” said Marty, caressing her. “I'm so glad. So we'll both be mission workers the rest of our lives, wont we?”
“With God's help, we will,” replied her mother.