A little time before Christy had felt a sensation in regard to Miss Craig. He did not often do this, which was one of his chief virtues. But, just now, in the midst of his discourse on foreign missions, he had been arrested for an instant by meeting the straight, intent gaze of the young woman who always, unless directly addressed, kept her discreet eyes upon her work. Miss Craig put on her hat and gathered up her handkerchief and purse. “May I trouble you to post these, Miss Craig?” said Christy, giving her a handful of letters. “Thank you. Good afternoon.” She laid the letters down on the mantelpiece while she opened her purse, which was shapely but thin. Out of it she took a dollar bill, leaving some silver, and put it in the money box. Christy had started up to expostulate. He sat down to recover. “She was as calm and matter-of-course about it,” he gasped, “as if it were only natural for poor working girls to help evangelize China out of their slim wages.” During the next two or three days much notice was taken of the missionary box. The notice was diverse in kind. The curiosity of some was quickly satisfied. Some stared politely. Others openly scoffed. One fashionable club man put in a penny. “To see how it feels,” he said. “The shock can’t be very great,” observed Christy, “even to so new a subject as yourself.” “But you know,” said the club man with a grin, “it comes on top of finding you running the machine. My nerves are all gone.” A clergyman who coughed gave liberally. “If I could have guessed that he was coming,” said Christy, with chagrin, “I would have covered the thing up. Some men can no more pass a collection basket than a drunkard can a corner saloon. But they are few.” A hard-headed merchant furtively dropped in a gold piece. “I got it in change,” he apologized, when he met Christy’s gaze. “It is as well to make some special use of it before I pay it out for a quarter.” A circuit judge lifted the box in his hand and read the verses as Christy had done. When he set it down again he stood before it in silence while Christy looked up, wondering, and did not disturb him. At last the judge aroused himself. He made a large donation. “My daughter was interested in all these things,” he said. Christy remembered then the young girl who had died the year before. In one way and another, Jim Perry’s missionary box grew heavy. Then it was full. Christy took it apart, put the money in a pigeon-hole in his desk and set it back into place. He did not allow himself to comment. [Illustration: “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.”] On the same afternoon, Chippy Black, the errand boy, was waiting in the office for a note. Chippy was a new boy; Christy did not feel sure of him. Lifting his head now to give directions, Chippy was caught in the act of “hefting” the missionary box. “Ah,” said Christy to himself, with vexed enlightenment. Hunting office boys was a bore.