Mrs. Adrian looked with anything but an approving eye on Ruth’s missionary work. In her plain-spoken way she shot many little arrows at her daughter which went home. One evening after tea the Adrians were seated round the table. Mr. Adrian was deep in the marvellous adventures of a gentleman who had spent a year in Patagonia, and Mrs. Adrian was knitting. Ruth sat gazing in the fire. For a wonder, she was doing nothing. Both her mother and father had noticed a change in her for some time past. Mrs. Adrian, looking up from her knitting, and noticing the far-away look on her daughter’s face, spoke her mind on the subject. ‘What’s the matter with you, Ruth? Why don’t you do something instead of sitting mumchancing there, staring at the fire as if you expected to see somebody walk out of it? I hope you’re not going to sit like that long. It gives me the creeps.’ Ruth coloured, and picked up the work which had fallen into her lap. ‘I beg your pardon, mother dear,’ she said softly; ‘I was thinking.’ ‘Well, my dear, I could see that; but you can think without looking like a death’s head at an evening party. It’s my idea you’ve something on your mind. What do you think, John?’ ‘Eh, my dear? What do you say?’ asked Mr. Adrian, looking up from his book. ‘I said, if you’d leave those blessed Paddygonians you’re always talking about——’ Patagonians, my dear.’ ‘Oh, bother!—Pat and Paddy, it’s the same thing. If you’d leave them and look at your own flesh and blood, you’d be doing your duty as a father better——’ ‘What’s the matter now, my dear?’ ‘Matter? Why, you oughtn’t to ask. Look at your daughter—she’s thin, she’s pale, she’s listless. It’s my opinion she’s killing herself over this mission work, as she calls it—worrying herself about a pack of ungrateful varmints that would take a track from her with one hand and pick her pocket with the other.’ Ruth could never convince her mother that her missionary labours did not consist in giving tracts. The old lady would recognize no other process of visiting the poor. ‘Mother,’ she said gently, ‘you wrong my poor friends very much.’ ‘That’s right, Ruth, prefer ragged ragamuffins to your mother. If that’s your religion, I’m sorry for you. If you’ve got a tract on honouring your father and mother, I’d recommend you to read it. Wrong your friends, indeed! What are they? A grateful lot, I dare say. Give you all they’ve got, my dear, wouldn’t they? Well, as all they’ve got generally is a fever and a few specimens of natural history, I dare say they would.’ Ruth coloured, and looked pained. ‘Don’t tease the girl so, Mary,’ said Mr. Adrian, looking up from his book. ‘She isn’t well, and you worry her.’ Ruth cast a grateful look at her father, and then crossed the room, and, stooping down over her mother, stopped the sharp retort that was rising to her lips with a kiss. Mr. Adrian took advantage of the pause.