een hoping that dog
wouldn't be around."

"He never bites," I assured her.

"Perhaps he doesn't, but he always looks as if he was going to,"
rejoined Cecily.

The dog continued to look, and, as we edged gingerly past him and up
the veranda steps, he turned his head and kept on looking. What with
Mr. Campbell before us and the dog behind, Cecily was trembling with
nervousness; but perhaps it was as well that the dour brute was there,
else I verily believe she would have turned and fled shamelessly when we
heard steps in the hall.

It was Mr. Campbell's housekeeper who came to the door, however; she
ushered us pleasantly into the sitting-room where Mr. Campbell was
reading. He laid down his book with a slight frown and said nothing at
all in response to our timid "good afternoon." But after we had sat for
a few minutes in wretched silence, wishing ourselves a thousand miles
away, he said, with a chuckle,

"Well, is it the school library again?"

Cecily had remarked as we were coming that what she dreaded most of all
was introducing the subject; but Mr. Campbell had given her a splendid
opening, and she plunged wildly in at once, rattling her explanation off
nervously with trembling voice and flushed cheeks.

"No, it's our Mission Band autograph quilt, Mr. Campbell. There are to
be as many squares in it as there are members in the Band. Each one has
a square and is collecting names for it. If you want to have your name
on the quilt you pay five cents, and if you want to have it right in the
round spot in the middle of the square you must pay ten cents. Then when
we have got all the names we can we will embroider them on the squares.
The money is to go to the little girl our Band is supporting in Korea. I
heard that nobody had asked you, so I thought perhaps you would give me
your name for my square."

Mr. Campbell drew his black brows together in a scowl.

"Stuff and nonsense!" he exclaimed angrily. "I don't believe in Foreign
Missions--don't believe in them at all. I never give a cent to them."

"Five cents isn't a very large sum," said Cecily earnestly.

Mr. Campbell's scowl disappeared and he laughed.

"It wouldn't break me," he admitted, "but it's the principle of the
thing. And as for that Mission Band of yours, if it wasn't for the fun
you get out of it, catch one of you belonging. You don't really care a
rap more for the heathen than I do."

"Oh, we do," protested Cecily. "We do think of all the poor