"Well, Mrs. Campbell, I don't know but you'll think me impudent, but I don't mean to be, so I hope you'll excuse me."
"I will when I know what there is to excuse."
"Well, somebody has been telling everybody that you gave Marion a present of a watch that cost more than a hundred dollars, and folks say—some folks do—that they won't give money to missionaries to buy gold watches with. And I thought I would just ask you how it really was."
"Quite right, Mary. I will answer your question to the best of my ability. In the first place, the watch did not cost a hundred dollars, but only sixty. Secondly, it was given to Marion, not by me, but by Mr. Van Alstine, her stepfather, who is a quite wealthy man. Thirdly, supposing I had given my niece a gold watch, it would by no means follow that the cause of missions was any poorer. Mr. McRae is agent for a sewing-machine factory; but if he should give Matty a watch, nobody would have a right to suppose that he paid for it with his employers' money. That would be a very unkind and uncharitable conclusion."
Mrs. Campbell had known nothing about Matty's connection with the story of the gold watch. She was therefore very much surprised when all the girls looked at her significantly and Matty coloured and looked just ready to cry. She saw that there was something amiss, and with her usual ready tact she hastened to change the conversation.
"Suppose any one wished to be a missionary; what would be the best way of going to work to get ready, Mrs. Campbell?" asked Emily Sibley.
"I hardly know how to answer you except by saying that the better you are prepared for usefulness at home, the more useful you are likely to be abroad. Some experience in teaching is very desirable, and a district school or a class in Sunday school is a very good training. Then one should be well acquainted with the best methods of doing all sorts of household work; and, in short, usefulness in the home-field is the best preparation for usefulness in the other."
"Now, really, my dear girls, you must not quite eat Mrs. Campbell up at one meal," said lively little Mrs. Parmalee, coming into the room presently. "Consider that you have kept her on the stretch for three mortal hours. Now put away your work and come and have some tea. You have learned as much as you can remember, I am sure."
"We have not been learning at all," said Mary McIntyre, indignantly. "It has been just as interesting as it could be."
"Mary doesn't go to the Crocker school, that's certain," said Lizzy, joining in the universal laugh. "Never mind, Molly; some time or other you will find out that learning can be interesting. Oh, there! Don't cry," as the sensitive little girl's cheeks grew scarlet and her eyes overflowed. "There was not a bit of harm in what you said, and the girls were not laughing at you at all. Were we, girls?"