res
home to their society for the missionary magazines. They don't teach
them anything useful at all, and they do a roaring trade with the
garments sent out by pious ladies' work guilds; as if the natives
weren't better in their own natural state than they are ever likely
to be dressed up in clothes and fuddled with doctrines."

Mr. Grenville, standing very upright and looking every inch a man,
said simply, "It isn't entirely their fault always. The home folk like
the figures; they imagine they stand for progress, and they know
nothing about the conditions. Many missionaries are very fine men, and
they would do even better work if left a little more to their own
initiative, and not cursed with this atmosphere of competition in
figures. It isn't fair to damn the whole flock because a few of the
sheep are black."

"And don't you ever feel you are wasting your talents?" Meryl asked
him a little shyly.

He threw his head back and squared his shoulders with a characteristic
movement. "It is better than the hypocrisy and feebleness of the
condition of affairs at home; and I am very fond of the natives. They
are most lovable, when one once gets their confidence and understands
them. And the freedom is good, and the primitive conditions. The
getting right down to the bedrock of nature, so to speak, without too
much highly developed civilisation. Yes, it is a good life for a man.
Sometime I should like to show you the mission farm. We've made
tremendous strides lately."

"And you?..." Diana turned with a winsome air to Ailsa Grenville. "Do
you find the natives lovable, and the primitive conditions?... And are
you proud of the mission farm?... Or doesn't it all sometimes make you
just long to scream?... It would me!..."

Ailsa smiled into her eyes. "One grows adaptable very quickly. I
confess I am very happy here. Certainly there are times when one feels
rather as if one had dropped off the world into space, but it doesn't
take long to struggle through it. But then, of course, it is well to
remember that Billy and I are rather an exceptional couple; quite
absurdly, idiotically satisfied with each other's company. If it were
not so our lives would be purgatory. The tragedies of these far
countries are for the husbands and wives isolated from all other
companionship, and having perhaps nothing in common with each other.
There are few conditions worse than isolation under those
circumstances. It breaks the woman's spirit and