The talk was getting a little too personal, and the ganger, with an extra red face and a muttered "Don't know," turned away. Jim Coates was delighted when Phebe took him the news. The distance from the town was no obstacle, he being the happy possessor of a "bone-shaker" bicycle. "But," said Mrs. Waring, in a serious tone, "the ganger says you must keep your religion to yourself. Are you going to do that?" "Not I; why should I?" "Because they will give you a lively time." "Well, let them; I'm not made of sugar." "That's splendidly said; and you'll show your colours from the very first, won't you?" "I should be a sneak if I didn't." That same day at the tea-table Phebe gave an account of her day's mission. Meal-times were always made as interesting as possible. Nanna remarked that she wondered what the men camped out there did with themselves on Sundays. Bessie suggested it would be a splendid thing if Mrs. Waring went over there on Sunday afternoons and talked to the men, adding, "I am sure she could do it splendidly, and they'd listen to her like anything; but there, that will never come to pass, because the Bible says women mustn't do that sort of thing." Nanna was on the war-path instantly. "In what part of the Bible do you find that, I should like to know? That's nothing but the teaching of the evil one, just to hinder the Lord's work. I'd think twice, if I were you, before I'd do that sort of dirty work." "It says women are not to speak in church; I'm sure it does," stammered Bessie, getting red and feeling uncomfortable. "It says they are not to chatter in the church, and nothing more; and that's what they still do in the east, so they say, both men and women. You forget that the Bible gives particulars as to how women should dress when they pray or prophesy, that Jesus Himself told women to spread the news about Him, that God told Joel his daughters should prophesy, that Phillip's daughters were prophets and Deaconess Phebe a foreign missionary! You forget all that; but there, you are no worse than lots of other women. Women run women down just as much as men do. Often and often when women might have done a good piece of work for God they got behind that bit of bad translation, and, like dying ducks, gurgle something about it 'not being modest.' It's a good deal more immodest to aid Satan in his work! I've no patience with the majority of women, and I do hope, Bessie, you won't become one of the brainless sort that think a good deal more about the fit of a skirt and the cut of a sleeve than they do about God's Kingdom!" Poor Bessie did not know what to answer. Fortunately the group broke up just then, and she followed Phebe out into Sunshine Patch, where little Jack was rolling in the grass, and where there was quite a show of spring's yellow and violet tints.