oast rack
was out, the doughnuts were out, the milk was skimmed, the butter had
been brought from the dairy.

Miranda removed the shawl from her head and sank into the kitchen
rocker, ejaculating under her breath, "She is the beatin'est child! I
declare she's all Sawyer!"

The day and the evening passed off with credit and honor to everybody
concerned, even to Jane, who had the discretion to recover instead of
growing worse and acting as a damper to the general enjoyment. The
Burches left with lively regrets, and the little missionaries, bathed
in tears, swore eternal friendship with Rebecca, who pressed into their
hands at parting a poem composed before breakfast.

TO MARY AND MARTHA BURCH

Born under Syrian skies,
'Neath hotter suns than ours;
The children grew and bloomed,
Like little tropic flowers.

When they first saw the light,
'T was in a heathen land.
Not Greenland's icy mountains,
Nor India's coral strand,

But some mysterious country
Where men are nearly black
And where of true religion,
There is a painful lack.

Then let us haste in helping
The Missionary Board,
Seek dark-skinned unbelievers,
And teach them of their Lord.
Rebecca Rowena Randall.

It can readily be seen that this visit of the returned missionaries to
Riverboro was not without somewhat far-reaching results. Mr. and Mrs.
Burch themselves looked back upon it as one of the rarest pleasures of
their half year at home. The neighborhood extracted considerable eager
conversation from it; argument, rebuttal, suspicion, certainty,
retrospect, and prophecy. Deacon Milliken gave ten dollars towards the
conversion of Syria to Congregationalism, and Mrs. Milliken had a spell
of sickness over her husband's rash generosity.

It would be pleasant to state that Miranda Sawyer was an entirely
changed woman afterwards, but that is not the fact. The tree that has
been getting a twist for twenty years cannot be straightened in the
twinkling of an eye. It is certain, however, that although the
difference to the outward eye was very small, it nevertheless existed,
and she was less censorious in her treatment of Rebecca, less harsh in
her judgments, more hopeful of final salvation for her. This had come
about largely from her sudden vision that Rebecca, after all, inherited
something from the Sawyer side of the house instead of belonging, mind,
body, and soul, to th