ting, it isn't polite nor holy. Take it out and
stick it somewhere till the exercises are over."

The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot so charged with fate, and
extended their trembling hands one by one. Then after a moment's silent
clutch of their papers they drew nearer to one another and compared
them.

Emma Jane Perkins had drawn the short one, becoming thus the destined
instrument for Jacob Moody's conversion to a more seemly manner of life!

She looked about her despairingly, as if to seek some painless and
respectable method of self-destruction.

"Do let's draw over again," she pleaded. "I'm the worst of all of us.
I'm sure to make a mess of it till I kind o' get trained in."

Rebecca's heart sank at this frank confession, which only corroborated
her own fears.

"I'm sorry, Emmy, dear," she said, "but our only excuse for drawing lots
at all would be to have it sacred. We must think of it as a kind of a
sign, almost like God speaking to Moses in the burning bush."

"Oh, I WISH there was a burning bush right here!" cried the distracted
and recalcitrant missionary. "How quick I'd step into it without even
stopping to take off my garnet ring!"

"Don't be such a scare-cat, Emma Jane!" exclaimed Candace bracingly.
"Jacob Moody can't kill you, even if he has an awful temper. Trot right
along now before you get more frightened. Shall we go cross lots with
her, Rebecca, and wait at the pasture gate? Then whatever happens Alice
can put it down in the minutes of the meeting."

In these terrible crises of life time gallops with such incredible
velocity that it seemed to Emma Jane only a breath before she was being
dragged through the fields by the other Daughters of Zion, the guileless
little Thirza panting in the rear.

At the entrance to the pasture Rebecca gave her an impassioned embrace,
and whispering, "WHATEVER YOU DO, BE CAREFUL HOW YOU LEAD UP," lifted
off the top rail and pushed her through the bars. Then the girls turned
their backs reluctantly on the pathetic figure, and each sought a tree
under whose friendly shade she could watch, and perhaps pray, until the
missionary should return from her field of labor.

Alice Robinson, whose compositions were always marked 96 or 97,--100
symbolizing such perfection as could be attained in the mortal world of
Riverboro,--Alice, not only Daughter, but Scribe of Zion, sharpened her
pencil and wrote a few well-chosen words of introduction, to be used
when