Long training had strengthened, and association had verified my unshakable belief that the most essential quality of the very high calling of a missionary, is an unlimited supply of consecrated commonsense.  So far, not a vestige of it had I discovered in the devotee I was taking to my home, but Jane Gray was as full of surprises as she was of sentiment.

[Illustration:  Through the sinister shadows of Flying Sparrow Street]

She not only stayed in my house, but with her coming the spell of changeless days was broken.  It was as if her thin hand held the charm by which my door of opportunity was flung wide, and through it I saw my garden of dreams bursting into flower.

II

KISHIMOTO SAN CALLS

I had always been dead set against taking a companion permanently into my home.  For one reason I heeded the warning of the man who made the Japanese language.  To denote “peace” he drew a picture of a roof with a woman under it.  Evidently being a gentleman of experience, he expressed the word “trouble” by adding another person of the same sex to the picture without changing the size of the roof.

Then, too, there was my cash account to settle with.  Ever since I’d been drawing a salary from the National Education Board of Missions, I felt like apologizing to the few feeble figures that stared accusingly at me from my small ledger, for the demands I made upon them for charity, for sickness, and for entertainment of all who knocked at my door.

My classes were always crowded, but there were times when the purses of my students were more lean than their bodies.  Frequently such an one looked at me and said, “Moneys have all flewed away from my pockets.  Only have vast consuming fire for learning.”  It being against my principle to see anybody consumed while I had a rin, there was nothing to do but make up to the Board what I had failed to collect.

These circumstances caused me to hesitate risking the peace of my household, or putting one more responsibility on my purse.

Then sweet potatoes decided me.  It was a matter of history that famine, neither wide-spread nor local, ever gained a foothold where “Satsuma Emo” flourished.  This year they were fatter and cheaper than ever before.  I knew dozens of ways to fix them, natural and disguised; so I bought an extra supply and made up my mind to keep Jane Gray.

The little missionary thrived in her new environment as would a drooping plant freshly potted.  As she grew stronger, she hinted at trying once again to live in her old quarters, that she might fast and work and pray for her sinners.  I promptly suppressed any plans in that direction.

After all, I had been a lonelier woman than I realized, and Jane was like a kitten with a bell around its neck—­one grows used to its playing about the house and misses it when gone.  She also resembled a fixed star in her belief that she had been divinely appointed to carry a message of hope to the vilest of earth, and I felt that the same power had charged me with the responsibility of impressing her with a measure of commonsense.