st fitted to carry on the work that lay closest to
her heart after she herself was done with it all.

It was times like these that made Ma young again. She just wandered
quietly about in the woods and meadows, or went and listened to the
music practices in the church. She was delighted with the singing, and
before leaving thanked the precentor for the pleasure she had got, and
he gave her his tuning-fork, which he valued, and she kept it as one of
her treasures to the end.

Coming out one night after the service, she looked up to the starry sky,
and said, "These stars are shining upon my bairns--I wonder how they
are"; and once, when "_Peace, perfect peace? with loved ones far away!_"
was sung, she said: "I was thinking all the time of my children out
there."

She missed them more and more as the months went on. One afternoon, when
she was sitting down to tea in a house in Perthshire, she begged to be
allowed to hold a red-cheeked baby-boy on her knee. "It is more homely,"
she said, "and I have been so used to them all these years."

Then she made up her mind. "I cannot stay longer, I am growing anxious
about my children. I am sure they need me." Her friends tried to keep
her, but no, she must go. They bade her farewell at one or two large
meetings, where her figure, little and fragile, and worn by long toil in
the African sun, brought tears to many eyes. The meetings were very
solemn ones. As she spoke of the needs of Africa, one who listened said:
"It is not Mary Slessor who is speaking, but God."

One night before she sailed she was found crying quietly in bed, not
because she had no friends, for she had many, but because all her own
loved ones were dead, and she was homeless and lonesome. She just
wanted her mother to take her into her arms, pat her cheek, and murmur,
as she had done long ago, "Good-bye, lassie, and God be with you."

Dan did not wish to leave all the delights of his life in Scotland, and
although he had mechanical toys and books and sweets to cheer him, he
sobbed himself to sleep in the train.

So Ma looked her last upon the dear red and grey roofs and green hills
of Scotland, for she never saw them again.

She went to Use, which now became her home. It was a lonely place
amongst trees, near the great new highway. A wonderful road that was.
Bordered by giant cotton trees and palms, it ran up and down, over the
hills, without touching a village or town. These were all cleverly
hidden away i