"We wasn't quite through decoratin' when supper time come, so we stayed on to Mis' Sykes's for a pick-up lunch, et in the kitchen, an' finished up afterwards. Most of 'em could do that better than they could leave their work an' come down again next mornin'--men-folks can always get along for supper, bein' it's not a hot meal. "'Ain't it wonderful,' says Mis' Toplady, thoughtful, 'here we are, settin' 'round the kitchen table at Mis' Postmaster Sykes's in Friendship Village. An' away off in Arabia or Asia or somewhere that I ain't sure they is any such place, is somebody settin' that never heard of us nor we of him, an' he's goin' to hev our five dollars from the Tropical Fête to-morrow night, an' put it to work doin' good.' "'It makes sort of a connection, don't it?' says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. 'There they are an' here we are. Ain't it strange? 'Seems like our doin' this makes us feel nearer to them places. I donno but that,' says she, noddin', 'is the start of what it means about the lion and the lamb layin' down together.' "'Oh!'says Mis' Toplady, 'I tell you the Foreign Missionary Circle has been next best to _goin'_. 'Seems sometimes as if I've 'most been somewheres an' seen palms a-growin' an' a-wavin' an' a red sky back. Don't it to you? I've dreamed o' them places all my life, an' I ain't never had anything but Friendship Village, an' I don't know now that Arabia an' Asia an' India is rilly fitted in, the way they look on the map. An' so with some more. But if so be they are, then,' she says, 'we owe it to the Foreign Missionary Circle that we've got that far towards seein' 'em.' "An' we all agreed, warm, excep' Mis' Sykes, who was the hostess an' too busy to talk much; but we knew how she felt. An' we said some more about how wonderful things are, there in Mis' Sykes's kitchen while we et. "Well, when we got done decoratin' after supper, we all walked over to the post-office store to the sale--the whole Circle of us. Because, of course, if the letters was to be sold there wasn't any harm in seein' who got 'em, an' in knowin' just how mean who was. Then, too, we was interested in what was in the two trunks. We was quite early--early enough to set along on the front rows of breakfast-food boxes that was fixed ready. An' in the very frontmost one was Mis' Sykes an' Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, an' me.