Ruth asked her father’s advice about Gertie. What was she to do? She couldn’t send the child back. Of course, she intended that Heckett should know Gertie was safe, but she was determined, if possible, to keep her out of his clutches. She had hoped to be able to keep her for a little while until she could decide what to do, but her mother was so much against Gertie remaining. Mr. Adrian laid down his book. ‘Then you really wish to keep the child near you for a while?’ he said. ‘I do, indeed, father. I am in some measure responsible for her leaving home.’ Ruth blushed as she spoke, for she remembered it was her anxiety to hear about Marston which had brought Gertie’s trouble upon her. Mr. Adrian thought for a moment, then he rubbed his hands in evident glee. ‘I have it, my dear,’ he said. ‘Your mother’s objection to the child is the only thing we have to get over. Leave it to me to remove that.’ That evening, after Gertie had gone to bed, the usual little group sat in the dining-room. Ruth was busy making nicknacks for a charity bazaar in which she was interested, Mrs. Adrian was knitting, and Mr. Adrian was deep in the adventures of a missionary who had gone out to Africa, and who for the first few hundred pages used his gun a good deal oftener than his Bible. Mr. Adrian read a few choice passages aloud, and speedily aroused the indignation of his better half. ‘Missionary!’ exclaimed that good lady. ‘Well, if he’s a fair specimen of missionaries, I’m sorry for the heathen. Its a queer way of converting a black man to put a bullet through him. ‘But, my dear,’ urged Mr. Adrian, ‘it was in self-defence.’ ‘Self-fiddlesticks! What business had the man there, poking his nose into their wigwams and interfering? How would you like a black man to walk in here and begin lecturing you? You’d try to turn him out, wouldn’t you? And then because you did that he’d turn round and shoot you, and say it was self-defence. Bah! I haven’t patience with all this mischief-making in outlandish parts.’ ‘But, my dear, much good is done. This missionary was a very famous man, and he converted them at last. Before he left, the natives used knives and forks instead of their fingers, and the king of one very ferocious tribe, of cannibal habits, had all his prisoners of war roasted on Saturday afternoon to avoid Sunday cooking. How would civilization be spread, my dear but for these explorers?’ ‘Civilization!’ exclaimed Mrs. Adrian, dropping half-a-dozen stitches in her excitement. ‘Don’t you think there’s room for a little more civilization at home before we begin to give it away to the blackamoors? Civilization ought to begin at home.’ ‘You are wrong, my dear,’ said Mr. Adrian, closing his book and preparing for battle. ‘What do you say, Ruth?’ ‘I think we ought to do a good deal more at home than we do,’ said Ruth gently. ‘I think sometimes the black heathen get a great deal more sympathy than the white.’