boys Mary found her way to their homes in the slums, and paid visits to their mothers and sisters, and saw that life to them was often very hard and wretched. The other Mission workers used to go two and two, but she often went alone. Once she was a long time away, and when she came back she said laughingly:

"I've been dining with the Macdonalds in Quarry Pend."

"Indeed," said some one, "and did you get a clean plate and spoon?"

"Oh, never mind that," replied Mary. "I've got into their house and been asked to come back, and that's all I care about."

She always went in the same spirit in which Jesus would have gone. Sometimes she would sit by the fire with the baby on her knees; sometimes she would take tea with the family, drinking out of a broken cup; sometimes she would help the mother to finish a bit of work. And always she cheered up tired and anxious hearts, and left sunshine and peace where there had been only the blackness of despair.

No one could be long in her company without feeling better, and not a few of her friends came, through her, to know and love and work for Jesus. "Three weeks after I knew her," says one of her old factory mates, "I became a different girl." How eager and earnest she was! "Oh!" she said to a companion, "I wonder what we would do or dare for Jesus? Would we be burned at the stake? Would we give our lives for His sake?" "She did work hard," says another, "and whatever she did, she did with heart and soul."

When the Mission was removed to the rooms under the church, the superintendent said: "We shall need a charwoman to give the place a thorough cleaning."

"Nonsense," said Mary; "we will clean it ourselves."

"You ladies clean such a dirty hall!"

"Ladies!" cried Mary; "we are no ladies, we are just ordinary working folk."

Next night Mary and another teacher were found, with sleeves turned up and aprons on, busy with pails of water and brushes scrubbing out the rooms. Like other young people, she had her troubles, big and little, and these she met bravely. Evil-minded persons, jealous of her goodness, sometimes said unkind things about her, but she never paid any heed to them. She always did what she thought was right, and went her own way. On Saturdays she used to put her hair in curlpapers, and her companions teased her a lot about it, and tried to laugh her out of the habit, but she just laughed back. When she and two or three friends met during the meal hour and held a little prayer meeting opposite the factory, the other girls would come and peep in, and one of her companions would be vexed and scold them. "Dinna bother, Janet," she would say quietly, "we needna mind what they do."

She was not always serious, but could enjoy fun and frolic with the wildest. Once while walking in the country with a girl she knocked playfully at some cottage doors and ran away. "Oh, Mary," said her friend, "I'm shocked at you!"

Mary only laughed, and said, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."

From one old friend we get a picture of her at this time. "Her face was always shining and happy. With her fresh skin, her short ringlets, and her firm mouth she somehow always made me think of a farmer's daughter coming to market with butter and eggs!"

Her life during these years was a training for what she had to do in the future. She must have had an inkling of it, for her dreams now were all of service in the far lands beyond the seas. Through the gloom of the smoky streets she was always seeing visions of tropical rivers and tangled jungle and heathen huts amongst palm trees, and above the noise of the factory she was hearing the cries of the little bush-children; and she longed to leave busy Dundee with its churches and Sunday Schools and go out and help where help was most needed. She did not say anything, for she knew it was her brother John that her mother was anxious to make a missionary. He was a big lad, but very delicate, and there came a time when the doctor said he must leave the cold climate of Scotland or die. He sailed to New Zealand, but it was too late, and he passed away there. His mother grieved again over her lost hopes, and Mary, who was very fond of him, wept bitterly. As she went about her work she repeated the hymn, "Lead, kindly Light," to herself, finding comfort in the last two lines:

And then she came back to her dazzling day-dream. Could she not, after all, be the missionary? But she was not educated, and she was the chief breadwinner of the family, and her mother leant upon her so much. How could she manage it? She thought it all out, and at last said, "I can do it. I will do it." She was one of the cleverest weavers in the factory, and she began to do extra work, thus earning a bigger wage and saving more money. She studied very hard. She practised speaking at meetings until she learned how to put her thoughts into clear and simple words.

But it was a weary, weary time, for she spent fourteen years within the walls of the factory. Thousands of other girls, of course, were doing the same, and sometimes they got very tired, but had just to go bravely on. In one of her poems Mrs. Browning tells us what it was like: how the revolving wheels seemed to make everything turn too—the heads and hearts of the girls, the walls, the sky seen out of the high windows, even the black flies on the ceiling—

But they never did stop, and the girls had only their hopes and dreams to make them patient and brave.

One day there flashed through the land a telegram which caused much excitement and sorrow. Africa was then an unknown country, vast and mysterious, and haunted by all the horrors of slavery and heathenism. For a long time there had been tramping through it a white man, a Scotsman, David Livingstone, hero of heroes, who had been gradually finding out the secrets of its lakes and rivers and peoples. Sometimes he was lost for years. The telegram which came told of his lonely death in a hut in the heart of the continent. Every one asked, What is to be done now? who is to take up the work of the great pioneer and help to save the natives from misery and death? Amongst those whose hearts leapt at the call was Mary Slessor. She went to her mother.

"Mother," she said, "I am going to offer myself as a missionary. But do not fret. I will be able to give you part of my salary, and that, with the earnings of Susan and Janie, will keep the home in comfort."

"My lassie," was the reply, "I'll willingly let you go. You'll make a fine missionary, and I'm sure God will be with you."

Some of her friends wondered at her. They knew she was not specially brave; indeed, was not her timidity a joke amongst them? "Why," they said, "she is even afraid of dogs. When she sees one coming down the street she goes into a passage until it is past!" This was true, but they forgot that love can cast out all fear.

Tremblingly she waited for the answer to her letter to the Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh. When it arrived she rushed to her mother.

"I'm accepted! I'm going to Calabar as a teacher." And then, strange to say, she burst into tears.