her 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.

"Oh, yes, yes!" cried some of the girls.

After a little talk the suggestion was adopted. They all wanted Marty to
be the one to write; but she said, though of course she was going to
write to Evaline, she could not write a good enough letter to be read at
the band, and would rather Mary Cresswell wrote. Miss Walsh decided that
would be the better way, as Mary was so much older and more accustomed
to writing. It was too much to expect Marty to do.

So Mary wrote a very nice letter--the Twigs were very proud of their
bright secretary--inclosing a note of introduction from Marty. In course
of time a reply was received from Almira thanking them all for their
kind interest in the mountain band, and accepting the invitation to
enter into a correspondence. This correspondence proved to be very