What did you
say first? How did you lead up to it?"

Emma Jane sobbed more convulsively, and wiped her nose and eyes
impartially as she tried to think.

"I guess I never led up at all; not a mite. I didn't know what you
meant. I was sent on an errant, and I went and done it the best I could!
(Emma Jane's grammar always lapsed in moments of excitement.) And then
Jake roared at me like Squire Winship's bull.... And he called my face
a mug.... You shut up that secretary book, Alice Robinson! If you write
down a single word I'll never speak to you again.... And I don't want to
be a member' another minute for fear of drawing another short lot. I've
got enough of the Daughters or Zion to last me the rest o' my life! I
don't care who goes to meetin' and who don't."

The girls were at the Perkins's gate by this time, and Emma Jane went
sadly into the empty house to remove all traces of the tragedy from her
person before her mother should come home from the church.

The others wended their way slowly down the street, feeling that their
promising missionary branch had died almost as soon as it had budded.

"Goodby," said Rebecca, swallowing lumps of disappointment and chagrin
as she saw the whole inspiring plan break and vanish into thin air like
an iridescent bubble. "It's all over and we won't ever try it again.
I'm going in to do overcasting as hard as I can, because I hate that the
worst. Aunt Jane must write to Mrs. Burch that we don't want to be
home missionaries. Perhaps we're not big enough, anyway. I'm perfectly
certain it's nicer to convert people when they're yellow or brown or
any color but white; and I believe it must be easier to save their souls
than it is to make them go to meeting."

Third Chronicle. REBECCA'S THOUGHT BOOK

I

The "Sawyer girls'" barn still had its haymow in Rebecca's time,
although the hay was a dozen years old or more, and, in the opinion of
the occasional visiting horse, sadly juiceless and wanting in flavor.
It still sheltered, too, old Deacon Israel Sawyer's carryall and
mowing-machine, with his pung, his sleigh, and a dozen other survivals
of an earlier era, when the broad acres of the brick house went to make
one of the finest farms in Riverboro.

There were no horses or cows in the stalls nowadays; no pig grunting
comfortably of future spare ribs in the sty; no hens to peck the plants
in the cherished garden patch. The Sawyer girls were getting on in
years, and, mindful