And Miss Toosey at once resolved to put a new braid round the bottom of the skirt as a good beginning of her preparations.
"I've got upstairs," Miss Toosey said reflectively, "a muslin dress that I wore when Rosina Smith was married. You remember Rosina Smith, Mr. John? No, of course not! She must have married before you were born. Sweet girl, Mr. John, very sweet! That dress has been rough dried for thirty years, and it's not quite in the fashion that ladies wear now; in fact, the skirt has only three breadths, which is scanty, you know, as dresses go; but I thought," and there Miss Toosey glanced timidly at the picture of the cannibals, which still lay open, "that perhaps it would not matter out there."
"No, indeed, Miss Toosey," John answered, "I should think that three breadths would appear liberal and ample allowance among people whose skirts"—he was going to say, "are conspicuous from their absence," but from Miss Toosey's heightened color he changed it to "are not court trains."
The next question was whether she had better have it got up before leaving Martel.
"It might get crumpled in packing; but then, how can one guess what sort of laundresses one may find at the other side of the world,—not used, most likely, to getting up fine things."
"I have heard," said John very seriously, "that in some parts missionaries try as much as possible to become like the nations they are wishing to convert, and that the Roman Catholic priests in China shave their heads and wear pigtails."
"Yes, Mr. John, I have heard that," Miss Toosey said; "and their wives" (you see she did not rightly understand the arrangements of our sister Church as to the celibacy of the clergy) "cripple their feet in small shoes, blacken their teeth, and let their finger-nails grow."
"I suppose," says John, drawing "Voyages and Adventures" nearer, and looking at the pictures reflectively, "that the Nawaub missionaries don't go in for that sort of thing."
Miss Toosey grew red to the very finger-tips, and her back stiffened with horror.
"No, Mr. John, there is a point beyond which I cannot go!"