At this moment a voice from a distance floated up to the haymow--a voice saying plaintively: “Will you let me play with you, girls? Huldah has gone to ride, and I'm all alone.” It was the voice of the absolutely-without-guile Thirza Meserve, and it came at an opportune moment. “If she is going to be a member,” said Persis, “why not let her come up and hold the lots? She'd be real honest and not favor anybody.” It seemed an excellent idea, and was followed up so quickly that scarcely three minutes ensued before the guileless one was holding the five scraps in her hot little palm, laboriously changing their places again and again until they looked exactly alike and all rather soiled and wilted. “Come, girls, draw!” commanded the president. “Thirza, you mustn't chew gum at a missionary meeting, it isn't polite nor holy. Take it out and stick it somewhere till the exercises are over.” The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot so charged with fate, and extended their trembling hands one by one. Then after a moment's silent clutch of their papers they drew nearer to one another and compared them. Emma Jane Perkins had drawn the short one, becoming thus the destined instrument for Jacob Moody's conversion to a more seemly manner of life! She looked about her despairingly, as if to seek some painless and respectable method of self-destruction. “Do let's draw over again,” she pleaded. “I'm the worst of all of us. I'm sure to make a mess of it till I kind o' get trained in.” Rebecca's heart sank at this frank confession, which only corroborated her own fears. “I'm sorry, Emmy, dear,” she said, “but our only excuse for drawing lots at all would be to have it sacred. We must think of it as a kind of a sign, almost like God speaking to Moses in the burning bush.” “Oh, I _wish_ there was a burning bush right here!” cried the distracted and recalcitrant missionary. “How quick I'd step into it without even stopping to take off my garnet ring!” “Don't be such a scare-cat, Emma Jane!” exclaimed Candace bracingly. “Jacob Moody can't kill you, even if he has an awful temper. Trot right along now before you get more frightened. Shall we go cross lots with her, Rebecca, and wait at the pasture gate? Then whatever happens Alice can put it down in the minutes of the meeting.” In these terrible crises of life time gallops with such incredible velocity that it seemed to Emma Jane only a breath before she was being dragged through the fields by the other Daughters of Zion, the guileless little Thirza panting in the rear. At the entrance to the pasture Rebecca gave her an impassioned embrace, and whispering, “_Whatever you do, be careful how you lead up_,” lifted off the top rail and pushed her through the bars. Then the girls turned their backs reluctantly on the pathetic figure, and each sought a tree under whose friendly shade she could watch, and perhaps pray, until the missionary should return from her field of labor.