However, the two determined to hear the voice from China.

Wednesday, the day for the meeting, came, and Hubert left work in time to join Winifred on her way.  They found the lecture-room of the church rather better filled than was usual at a missionary meeting, but only a few gentlemen were present.  Winifred had time to observe some of the faces about her before the meeting began.  She knew the Secretary, a woman with a keen, earnest face, always active in good works, and indefatigable in her efforts to excite a generally indifferent church into some glow of interest in the missionary cause.  There were a few other faces as interested as her own.  Hubert saw the plain little body he had singled out at the church social as one who perhaps would find it a pleasure to talk about the Lord.  Her eyes looked expectantly toward the quiet looking man who came in with Doctor Schoolman.

The President, rather new to her office, fingered her jeweled watch-chain nervously as she opened the meeting.  The company sang “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” and Doctor Schoolman offered prayer.  The Secretary read the minutes of the previous meeting—­a “Thank-offering meeting”—­and it was discovered that the sum of $90 had been realized.  The ladies exchanged glances of satisfaction at the amount.

“Hm-m!  Their combined thanks foot up to that,” thought Hubert.  He was a business man and must be forgiven such a practical view of the case.  “The Lord must be gratified!”

“I feel, ladies,” said the President, pushing a diamond ring up and down upon her finger anxiously, “very much pleased that our poor gifts have amounted to so much.  We cannot all do what we would, but we may give our mites, and together they will count for something in the work.  We cannot tell what these ninety dollars may mean to the heathen.”

“Their mites!” thought Hubert, with something of his old-time irony.  He was freshly instructed on the subject of money, and knew well the story of the widows’ mites.  “If Mrs. Greenman herself had given the ninety dollars, I should think she was beginning to feel a tinge of gratitude for something.”

Winifred had fastened her brown eyes musingly upon the President.  She was wondering if money might express thanks, and, if so, how much would appropriately suggest her own gratitude to God for His “unspeakable gift.”

“No gift would be large enough,” she thought, and then the familiar lines came to her mind: 

  “Were the whole realm of nature mine,
  That were a present far too small;
  Love so amazing, so divine,
  Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

“How true that is,” she thought.  “But I suppose it is nice to give some token, even though one cannot adequately express one’s thanks.”

There were some other reports and then the leading alto from the choir sang: 

  “There is a green hill far away.”