k at all, and was glad that Edith was going to
her aunt Julia's from the meeting, so she could walk home alone. She
concluded that as soon as she reached home, she would go into her room
and pray that she might be a missionary. Then she could not wait until
she got home, and being on a quiet street, she slipped behind a tree-box
and offered this little prayer: "Dear Lord, if missionaries are still
needed by the time I grow up, I pray thee let me be one. For Jesus
Christ's sake. Amen."

She walked in home very soberly for her, and going directly to her
mother, asked, "Mamma, should you like me to go away over the seas and
be a missionary?"

"No, indeed!" said her mother emphatically. "I should not like it at
all. You mustn't think of such a thing."

"But if God calls me to go?" said Marty, with quivering lip.

It would be hard, after all, to leave this dear home. She scarcely knew
whether she wanted her prayer answered or not.

"What do you mean?" inquired Mrs. Ashford, drawing her on her lap.

Then Marty told all about the meeting, and what she had been thinking,
and how she had prayed to be a missionary.

"I want to be one if God wants me to, but I don't see how I _can_ go
away and leave you all," she said, half crying.

"Well," said her mother soothingly, seeing she was trembling with
excitement, "we need not talk about it yet. It will be a long time until
you are old enough or know enough to go. You will have to go to school
many years yet, and then, perhaps, to college, for you know the better
missionaries are educated the more good they can do. Then you must learn
to make your own clothes and take care of them, and it is well to know a
good deal about housekeeping also, for missionaries have to know how to
be independent, and be ready for any kind of life. You would hardly be
prepared to go before you are twenty, anyway, and that is ten years
yet."

"Nine and a half," put in Marty.

"In the meantime you can be doing as much as possible for missions at
home."

"Yes," said Marty, wiping her eyes and looking comforted, "that's so. We
needn't think of my going away yet, and I s'pose the right way is to do
as Miss Agnes says. She says the best way in mission work, as in
everything else, is just to do the nearest thing and do it as well as we
possibly can, and then be willing to let God lead us along from one step
to another."

"She is certainly right," said Mrs. Ashford.

"I have taken some steps since