al. There is no happiness like the
old and common happiness, sunshine and love and duty and the laughter of
children. . . . There are no duties that so enrich as dull duties."

The ancient voice and the new voice sing to the same sweet tune; and we
in our little measure are learning to sing it too.

As we have said, India is a land where the secular does not appeal. When
we were an Itinerating Band, we had many offers from Christian girls and
women to join us, as many in one month as we now have in five years.
Sometimes it has seemed to us that we were set to learn and to teach a
new and difficult lesson, the sacredness of the commonplace. Day by day
we learn to rub out a little more of the clear chalked line that someone
has ruled on life's black-board; the Secular and the Spiritual may not
be divided now. The enlightening of a dark soul or the lighting of a
kitchen fire, it matters not which it is, if only we are obedient to the
heavenly vision, and work with a pure intention to the glory of our God.

[Illustration: NORTH LAKE AND HILLS.]

The nursery kitchen is a pleasant little place. We hardly ever enter it
without remembering and appreciating John Bunyan's pretty thought, for
there things in the doing of them seem to cast a smile. Ponnamal, who,
as we said, superintends the more delicate food-making work, has trained
two of her helpers to carefulness; and these two--one a motherly older
woman with a most comfortable face, the other the convert, Joy--look up
with such a welcome that you feel it good to be there. Scrubbing away at
endless pots and pans and milk vessels is a younger convent-girl, who,
when she first came to us, disapproved of such exertion. She liked to
sit on the floor with her Bible on her lap and a far-away look of
content on her face until the dinner-bell rang. Now she scrubs with a
sense of responsibility.

All the younger converts have regular teaching, for they have much to
learn, and all, older and younger, have daily classes and meetings;
above all, it is planned that each has her quiet time undisturbed. But
it is early understood that to be happy each must contribute her share
to the happiness of the family; and one of the first lessons the young
convert has to learn is to honour the "Grey Angel," Drudgery, and not to
call her bad names.

The kitchen has an outlook dear to the Tamil heart. A trellis covered
with pink antigone surrounds it, but a window is cut in the trellis so
that th