heir own child, though they had educated her,
for she was friendless and destitute, and they loved her as a daughter.

To return to the school-house I have described. I should say that I was
the Mary I have mentioned, the missionary's daughter. I will tell more
about little Maud by-and-by. We used to act as assistant teachers to my
mother. As soon as the address she had given was over we went among the
girls to answer any questions they might put to us, or to help in their
tasks.

"Malay," said a girl at the further end of the room, near whom I had
seated myself (`Malay' was the name the natives always called me). "I
wish to know if your God always sees you."

"Yes, indeed, He does," I answered. "He sees and knows everything I
think and say and do."

"Then I would rather not _lotu_," she said. "Because I don't think that
the gods of my people know what they do, or what they think or say, and
I am very sure that I shall wish to do many things which might displease
them. Not long ago I laughed and jeered at them, and I am sure that
they did not find me out."

The term "_lotu_," I should explain, is used by the natives to signify
changing their religion, or becoming Christians.

"But our God, Jehovah, is above all gods. He made the world and all the
human race, and He therefore knows everything that you and all heathen
people do and say and think. The darkness is no darkness with Him, and
the day and night to Him are both alike," I answered. "But come to
mother, Lisele, and she will explain the matter to you more clearly than
I can do."

Lisele was the daughter of a heathen chief, who was very well disposed
towards the Christians; and although he would not _lotu_ himself, he
allowed Lisele, who was very intelligent, and possessed an inquiring
mind, to attend the school. She was about two years older than I was,
and I think any one who had seen her dressed in her costume of native
cloth of the finest texture, with a wreath of white flowers in her raven
hair, would have thought her very pretty. She was as yet imperfectly
instructed in Christian truth, and possessed of high spirits and an
independent will--a mere child of nature. It was evidently necessary to
treat her with the greatest caution to prevent her running away from us
and rejoining her former heathen associates.

Lisele, taking my hand, came and sat down at my mother's feet, and I
then put the question that she had asked me. "Yes, indeed, L