Part 23 (2/2)

There was a great deal more talk about India, Mrs. Thurston being besieged with questions, until Ruth feared she would be worn out, and said the meeting had better close.

”Oh! I like to talk about my dear India,” said Mrs. Thurston with a tearful smile; ”and if it is any help to you all in your work, I am only too willing to give you the help.”

”You have helped us ever so much,” replied Ruth, ”and we are very grateful. I'm sure we shall always feel the greatest interest in that wonderful old India, with its sore need of the gospel.”

”Yes,” said Almira, ”I feel now that every cent of money we can sc.r.a.pe together should be used for India.”

”Unfortunately it is not the only needy place in the world,” said Miss Mary.

”Well,” said Ruth, ”we must just work hard and do all we can for heathen lands.”

Then they sang several hymns, Hiram and Hugh Campbell having carried Almira's melodeon out to the garden, and closed by repeating the Lord's prayer in concert.

During the singing Mrs. Stokes had slipped away, and Mrs. Ashford and Ruth exchanged smiling glances when they saw her standing by the garden-gate as the friends pa.s.sed out, insisting that they should take some cookies and drop cakes from a basket she held. She would not hear of the hotel ladies getting into the carriage until they had partaken of the sliced cake and hot tea she had ready for them on the side porch.

”Ah, this is the way you get around it, Mrs. Stokes!” said Ruth.

”Now, Ruth,” exclaimed the good woman, ”don't you say a word. I a'n't going to have these folks go back home all f.a.gged out when a cup of tea will do 'em good.”

”This is another perfectly elegant missionary meeting,” said Marty. ”I wonder if Edith and the other girls are having as good a time as I am.”

CHAPTER XX.

COUSIN ALICE'S ZENANA WORK.

Mr. Ashford came up to the farmhouse about the first of September, and spent a week before taking his family home. So Marty did not arrive in time to be present at the first meeting of the band, but on the third Sat.u.r.day of the month she was on hand with her budget of news. She had much to hear as well as to tell, and it would take a long time to relate all the missionary experiences of those travelled Twigs. Indeed for several weeks something new was constantly coming up. It would be, ”O Miss Agnes, I forgot to tell about such a thing.” Or, ”I just now remember what I heard at such a place. May I tell it?”

Edith had attended a grand missionary meeting at the seaside, and Rosa had gone with her mother and elder sister to a missionary convention, where she saw and heard several missionaries who were at home for rest, and also several new ones who were going out soon. Others of the girls had attended band meetings where they were visiting, or had joined with other young workers in holding meetings in hotels and cottages. But no one had, like Marty, been present at the forming of a band and helped it start. Nor had they, like her, become well acquainted with a real missionary.

”Oh, I just had the nicest long talks with her!” said Marty, meaning of course Mrs. Thurston. ”I could ask her anything I wanted, you know. I even sat in her lap sometimes and hugged her real hard; and she would pat me and smooth my hair with the very same hands that used to do things for the little girls in India.”

”How elegant it must have been to have a missionary meeting in that pretty old garden, and such a nice missionary there to tell you things!”

said one of the girls.

”It _was_,” replied Marty briefly but fervently.

”Oh, I wish I could help start a band as Marty did!” exclaimed Daisy.

”Perhaps you have helped, though you may not be there to see it start,”

said Miss Walsh. ”Perhaps what you told those little girls from Georgia about our band and missions in general will bear good fruit, and there may be after a while a brand-new band in that far-away Southern town, that little Daisy helped to start.”

”Oh, I do hope so,” said Daisy, smiling and pressing her hands together.

”I think it would be nice to ask Marty's mountain band to write to our band and tell us what they're doing, and we'll tell them what we're doing,” suggested Edith.

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