of ball-and-socket joint, that the
feet could be moved up and down. In theory this worked admirably; in
practice it failed, for after a staggering step or two, the toes having
been once raised refused to go down, and thus was produced the curious
effect of a man stumping about on his heels! To overcome this
difficulty the heels of the feet were made to project almost as much
behind as the toes did in front somewhat after the pattern of Ebony's
pedal arrangements, as Rosco remarked when they were being fitted on for
another trial. At last, by dint of perseverance, the wooden legs were
perfected, and Rosco re-acquired the art of walking to such perfection,
that he was to be seen, almost at all times and in all weathers,
stumping about the village, his chief difficulty being that when he
chanced to fall, which he often did, he was obliged either to get some
one to help him up, or to crawl home; for, being unable to get his knees
to the ground when the legs were on, he was obliged to unstrap them if
no one was within hail.

Now, during all this time, Betsy Waroonga remained quite inconsolable
about her husband.

"But my dear, you know he is quite safe," her friend Marie Zeppa would
say to her, "for he is doing the Master's work among Christian men."

"I knows that," Betsy would reply, "an' I'm comforted a leetle when I
think so; but what for not Zeppa git a canoe ready an' take me to him?
A missionary not worth nothing without hees wife."

Marie sympathised heartily with this sentiment, but pointed out that it
was too long and dangerous a voyage to be undertaken in a canoe, and
that it was probable the mission ship would revisit Ratinga ere long, in
which case the voyage could be undertaken in comfort and safety.

But Betsy did not believe in the danger of a canoe voyage, nor in the
speedy arrival of the mission ship. In fact she believed in nothing at
that time, save in her own grief and the hardness of her case. She
shook her head, and the effect on the coal-scuttle, which had now become
quite palsied with age and hard service, was something amazing, insomuch
that Marie's sympathy merged irresistibly into mirth.

The good woman's want of faith, however, received a rebuke not many
weeks later.

She was hastening, one afternoon, to an outlying field to gather
vegetables in company with Zariffa, who had by that time grown into a
goodly-sized girl.

The pace induced silence, also considerable agitation in both b