"Your morals are hopelessly inferior—I won't say bad—and you would make a very weak mission agent," he said, shaking his head over her shortcomings.
"Should I? Then I mustn't marry a missionary. Think how awful it would be if while he was away preaching to the heathen, I remained at home encouraging his converts to misappropriate the mission funds."
"He would have to take you with him; it wouldn't be safe to leave you behind."
They both laughed; then he became serious again.
"But I say, really, joking apart; you know they have put me into no end of a difficulty by their cleverness, and I am at my wits' end to think how I am to rectify it."
"I know!" cried Eola, with a sudden inspiration. "Haven't you any other funds in hand from which you could borrow and get the tower built at once?"
He jumped to his feet as was his way when excited and strode up and down the verandah.
"You are every bit as bad as my people! That's the very thing they have done and which I am deprecating; and you suggest that I should follow their example. I can see that I have a duty to perform. I must take you in hand and convert you."
He stopped in front of her and let his eyes rest upon her abundant hair.
"Try," she said, looking up at him with shining eyes in which amusement mingled with something else. "Do try; I should like to see what your method would be."