e child,
for she--a thin, sharp-vis-aged and austere lady of forty years of
age--was childless, and older than her cheerful, kind-hearted husband
by twelve years. The natives bore her no love, and had given her the
contemptuous nickname of _Le Matua moa e le fua_--"the eggless old
hen".

Marsh himself told me this story. He and I had been shipmates together
in many cruises until he tired of the sea, and, having saved a little
money, started business as a trader among the Equatorial Islands--and I
lost a good comrade and friend.

"I wish you would take the child, Marsh," said the missionary presently.
"She is an orphan, and----"

"I'll take her, of course. She can help Leota, I daresay, and I'll
give her a few dollars a month. But why isn't she dressed in the usual
flaming style of your other pupils--skirt, blouse, brown paper-soled
boots, and a sixpenny poke bonnet with artificial flowers, and
otherwise made up as one of the 'brands plucked from the burning' whose
photographs glorify the parish magazines in the old country?"

Copley's blue-grey eyes twinkled. "Ah, that's the rub with my wife.
Pautoe won't 'put 'em on'. She is not a native of this island, as you
can no doubt see. Look at her now--almost straight nose, but Semitic,
thin nostrils, long silky hair, small hands and feet. Where do you think
she hails from?"

"Somewhere to the eastward--Marquesas Group, perhaps."

"That is my idea, too. Do you know her story?"

"No. Who is she?"

"Ah, that no one knows. Early one morning twelve or thirteen years
ago--long before I came here--the natives saw a small topsail-schooner
becalmed off the island. Several canoes put off, and the people, as
they drew near the vessel, were surprised and alarmed to see a number of
armed men on deck, one of whom hailed them, and told them not to come
on board, but that one canoe only might come alongside. But the natives
hesitated, till the man stooped down and then held up a baby girl about
a year old, and said:--

"'If you will take this child on shore and care for it I will give you a
case of tobacco, a bag of bullets, two muskets and a keg of powder,
some knives, axes and two fifty-pound tins of ship biscuit. The child's
mother is dead, and there is no woman on board to care for it.'

"For humanity's sake alone the natives would have taken the infant,
and said so, but at the same time they did not refuse the offer of the
presents. So one of the canoes went alongside, the