her.

One night Ma travelled to Falkirk to speak to a large class of girls
taught by Miss Bessie Wilson, a well-known lady in the Church. She had a
message that night, and her face shone and her words fell like stirring
music on the young hearts before her. Janie was passed round from one
to another, and helped to make her story more real. So delighted were
the girls with the black baby that they begged to be allowed to give
something every month for her support.

Perhaps all this had nothing to do with what happened afterwards, but
was it not strange that out of that class by and by no fewer than six
members gave themselves to the work in Calabar, including Miss Wright
and Miss Peacock, two of Ma's dearest friends and best helpers?

Ma had a wonderful power of drawing other people to her and of
influencing them for good. On this visit one girl, Miss Hogg, was no
sooner in her company than she decided to go to Calabar, and she went,
and was for many years a much-loved missionary, whose name was familiar
to the children of the Church at home.

Ma was anxious to be back at her work, but her sister Janie, who was
delicate like her brothers, needed all her care, and was at last ordered
by the doctor to live in a warmer climate. This set Ma dreaming again.
"If only I could take her out to Calabar with me," she mused, "we could
live cheaply in a native hut, and it might save her life." But the
Mission Board did not think this would be right, and Mary, who had a
quick brain as well as a warm heart, at once carried Janie off to
Devonshire, that lovely county in the south of England, where she
rented a house with a garden and nursed and cared for the invalid. Very
sorrowfully she gave up the work in Calabar she loved so much, but she
felt that her sister needed her most. Then she brought down her mother,
and they lived happily together, and Janie grew strong in the sunshine
and fresh air. After a time Ma thought they could be left, and, after
getting an old companion down from Dundee to look after them, she went
out again to Africa.

Her new station was Creek Town, a little farther away, where the
missionary was her dear friend Mr. Goldie, the _etubom akamba_, the "big
master." Here she lived more plainly than ever, for she needed now to
send a larger sum of money in order to keep the home in Devonshire. But
she had not long to do this loving service, for first her mother, and
then her sister, died. All the rest of the fami