inese little girls treated as badly as the ones in India?" Marty
asked.

"Why, yes," said Hannah, before Miss Walsh could reply. "Don't you
remember the 'Chinese Slave Girl,' that Miss Agnes read to us?--at least
read some of it. And don't you know how they are tortured by binding
their feet?"

"That isn't done on _purpose_ to torture them," said Mary. "That's a
custom of the country."

"Most of their customs appear to be tortures," said Marty.

"Yes," said Miss Walsh, "the customs of barbarous and half-civilized
nations are very hard on the women and girls."

"Well, it all makes me feel very sorrowful," Marty declared. "I never
thought before, when I've had such good times all my life, that there
are so many little girls who are not--a--"

"Not in the good times?" said Miss Walsh, helping her out.

"Yes, ma'am; and I do wish I could do something for some of them."

"So do I," said several of the others.

"I suppose," suggested Edith, "the faster we send the gospel to those
countries the better it will be for the girls and everybody."

"Couldn't we raise more money this year, enough to support another
school, or to pay for a girl or boy in a boarding-school somewhere?"
Rosa proposed.

"In that case we should have to double, or more than double, our usual
amount," said Miss Walsh. "The question is, can we do that?"

"Oh, do let us try!" exclaimed several of the girls.

Then they began forthwith to make plans for raising more money.

"Of course the more members we have, the more money we'll raise," said
Mary Cresswell, "so I think we'd better try again to get others to join
our band. I have asked the Patterson girls two or three times, but I'm
going to ask them again."

"Better not ask them _plump_ to join," suggested Bertie Lee. "Just get
them somehow to come to one meeting, and then they'll be sure to want to
belong."

"There's some wisdom in that," said Miss Walsh, laughing.

"Yes'm," said Bertie, "and I believe I'll try that way with Annie
Kelley."

"I'm going to ask that new girl in our Sunday-school class," said
Hannah.

"I'm going to try to get _somebody_ to come," said Marty.

"So am I," "And I," cried the others.

"That's right," said Miss Walsh. "We want to get as many people as
possible interested in missionary work, and, as Mary says, the more that
are interested and belong to societies, the more money will be raised,
and, of course, the more good will be done. So, don't you see, you