Laddie, and Miss Toosey's mission

by Evelyn Whitaker

"He's not a bad sort of old fellow out of church," John said, rather shocking Miss Toosey by his want of reverence for the rector; "and he has got some sense in his head as well as good nature. So you go to him, Miss Toosey, and the next time I come home, I'll come in and have another crack with you, if you are not off to the North Pole or the Moon."

John Rossitter smiled more than once as he drove home in the dog-cart, at the recollection of Miss Toosey's confidences; but I fear my readers may have grown impatient of the absurdities of an ignorant old woman, who had got a craze in her head. Yes, she was old and poor and weak and ignorant, it is quite true. It was a very contemptible barley-loaf which she had to offer, compared with your fine, white, wheaten cake of youth and riches and strength and learning; but remember she offered her best freely, willingly, faithfully; and when once a thing is offered it is no longer the little barley-loaf in the lad's hand, but the miraculous satisfying Bread of Heaven in the hand of the Lord of the Harvest, more than sufficient for the hungry multitude.

CHAPTER IV.

"You are making fun of me, Mr. John."

"I am incapable of such an action, Miss Toosey."

Six months have passed since my last chapter, and John Rossitter has paid many visits to the little house in North Street. Indeed, he rarely came to Brooklands without going to see Miss Toosey, drawn by a strange attraction which he hardly understood himself; though he once told his mother that he had fallen in love, and asked her how she would like Miss Toosey for a daughter-in-law.

Miss Toosey is still at Martel, and likely to remain so. Her interview with Mr. Peters put an end to her idea of becoming a missionary, as John Rossitter quite expected, and also provided the rector with a good joke, over which he laughs till the tears run down his cheeks. It was a very alarming interview to Miss Toosey altogether, as the rector was seized with an attack of coughing in the middle, and sputtered and choked till Miss Toosey longed to pat him on the back, if she had dared to venture on such familiarity with a Church dignitary; and for many months she puzzled Mrs. Peters by anxious inquiries after the rector's cold and the sad delicacy of his throat, and advised gargling with port wine and alum, and other decoctions of marvellous efficacy.

Miss Toosey's missionary ardor was by no means damped, only it was turned into a fresh channel. "Your money," the Bishop had said, "was another of those barley-loaves of every-day life that most people had in some proportion to offer;" thinking principally of the luxury and extravagance of fashionable life, and of the superfluity that might so well be cast into his empty treasury. There was not much luxury or extravagance in the little house in North Street; indeed, it was only by close management that two ends could be brought to meet; and even in little charities to poor neighbors (infinitesimally small though they might be) she was never in danger of offering to God that which cost her nothing. So it was an unsatisfactory thing to review her expenditure, with a view to greater economy, "with butchers' meat quite a fancy price, and everything else to match;" but she was not easily daunted, as you know, and she applied to Mr. Peters to procure her a box in which to collect for the Nawaub Mission. She did not allow him to forget it or to convince her that a Church Missionary box, or one for the Irish Society, would do quite as well; and when at last she had it, she carried it home with great pride, and gave it the place of honor in the centre of her table on the bead mat, in place of the lava inkstand that had been one of Mrs. Toosey's wedding presents.

It was this box that was now forming the subject of conversation between her and Mr. Rossitter, for she was to take it that very afternoon to the rectory to be opened, and the contents were to be forwarded to the Bishop. John had been commenting on its weight, and had told Miss Toosey that she would be obliged to have the omnibus from the "Hare and Hounds" to take it to the rectory, or at any rate a wheelbarrow and a strong man. And so it came that she accused him of laughing at her.