Two ladies, standing under a pretty rose-covered verandah, were engaged in conversation near a little table strewn with various books and pamphlets; another had just taken her seat before a small harmonium, while yet a fourth was handing round hymn-sheets. "Which do you suppose is the speaker?" whispered Monica to Elsa, who was next to her, "the lady in the nurse’s uniform, or the one in black?" "I can’t tell, they both look so nice. The tall, dark one in mourning looks clever; but I almost hope it will be the other, she looks so sweetly pretty." And both girls looked admiringly at the fair, healthy, girlish face framed in its dark blue bonnet. Soon a hymn was given out, in which the twenty-five or thirty girls joined somewhat shyly at first; this sort of meeting was an unusual experience for the majority of them. But the easily caught-up tune, sung so heartily by the lady helpers, inspired them, and by the time the last verse was reached quite a volume of sound rose from the youthful audience. After a short, informal prayer, by the elder of the two ladies, which was a revelation to Monica, who had never heard a woman’s voice uplifted in extempore prayer before, the girls sang another hymn; and then, after a few explanatory words from the same lady, who they discovered was a daughter of their hostess, the nurse stepped forward, and began to speak in clear, ringing tones, which could be heard all over the lawn, and which secured the attention of all. "I was so very pleased," she began, "when Mrs. Murray asked me if I would have a little ’talk’ with some girl-friends of hers one afternoon while I was staying with her for a few days in this delightful place. And I will tell you why. First, because I love English girls; second, because I love Chinese girls; and third, because I long to get the former to become interested in their sisters with a pig-tail, in that far-off land, behind the Great Wall. "So now, while we are all here together, I want you to listen while I tell you something of my work for the last five years in China, and then I will try to show you what you can do, _if you will_, to help make the lives of Chinese girls brighter and happier. First and foremost, I must start by saying that girls are thought little or nothing of in China; they are _not wanted_. And, although it is not really allowed, in one way or another nearly one-half of all the baby girls who are born in China are either drowned, or murdered, or what is even worse, buried alive directly they are born! And when I tell you that out of every three people in the whole world one is born in China, you can guess something of how many there are. It made my heart ache, often and often, to be in the midst of such dreadful cruelty; and yet we must not altogether blame the Chinese, for they do not know that our Heavenly Father values girls just as much as He does boys, and is grieved when they are ill-treated.