But the younger girls preferred to go round the house once more with nurse. Barbara was glad to be left alone with Lucia; so Ivor found himself alone with his brother. "Evan!" he began eagerly. "Do you think father and mother will want to know what we spent it on?" "Yes," said Evan gravely; "and I mean to tell them directly I have a chance. I shan't burst out with it, but no more underhand doings for me!" "Oh, no—I didn't mean that—!" "Ivor, if we belong to the Lord Jesus we have to leave behind all that is wrong." Ivor nodded earnestly. "I mean to—indeed I do, Evan. I have begun." Meanwhile Barbara and Lucia were in the drawing room, holding another conversation quite as particular in its results as that. "They cannot come for an hour at the earliest," said Lucia, looking round the room for something to do. "Can't you finish that painting? I'll get your apron," coaxed Barbara. "There is time; you said an hour would do it—" "So I did. Then I will, Barbara, now all is done." The little girl stood by her in unusual silence, watching her busy brush, but not chatting as she often did. An hour! The time was slipping away, and before it was over, she must get something said. At last she flung her arm round her sister's shoulder, and with the other hand poured some bright coins into her lap. "Whatever is that?" asked Lucia. For somehow the pressure round her neck told that Barbara felt what she was doing very much. "You know about that money father and mother sent?" "Yes—" "They will think I have spent it, and I haven't." "They will not mind, dear, about spending it if you do not want to." "But I do want to. You know that book I've been reading by myself all the last days? Well, I never thought of those sort of things before. It's a missionary-book; it tells about the little girls who are married so young in India, and are shut up in houses with no pleasures, no employments, no books, no work, no love, no anything! And, oh, Lucia, I thought—" Lucia looked up in her face with swimming eyes. "I thought," pursued Barbara, hiding her face on her sister's shoulder, "that I had so much; and that if I could do anything—I know this isn't much; but, Lucia, they want so much—money, and people to go, and lots of things. But I thought if I sent this now, when I am old enough I might go!" "Oh, Barbara!" "Don't you like me to? You would want to go if you had read how sad and desolate they are without ever having heard of a Saviour, and how perfectly different it all is when they know about Him!" Lucia turned round and clasped the little missionary in her arms. "Oh, Barbara, Barbara!" she said lovingly. "You don't think father and mother will mind?" "Mind losing you by-and-by, do you mean?" "No; about the money?" "I feel sure they will not." And then there was the sound of wheels, and in another moment their father had sprung out of the carriage and was walking up the path almost with his old step.