THE city clock strikes one as Mrs. Swiggs, nervous and weary, enters the House of the Foreign Missions. Into a comfortably-furnished room on the right, she is ushered¹ by a man meekly³ dressed, and whose countenance⁴ wears an expression of melancholy⁵. Maps and drawings of Palestine, Hindostan, and sundry⁶ other fields of missionary⁷ labor⁸, hang here and there upon the walls. These are alternated with nicely-framed engravings and lithographs⁹ of Mission establishments in the East, all located in some pretty grove¹⁰, and invested with a warmth and cheerfulness that cannot fail to make a few years' residence in them rather desirable than otherwise. These in turn are relieved with portraits of distinguished¹¹ missionaries¹². Earnest-faced busts¹³, in plaster, stand prominently about the room, periodicals and papers are piled on little shelves, and bright bookcases are filled with reports and various documents concerning the society, all bound so exactly. The good-natured man of the kind face sits in refreshing¹⁴ ease behind a little desk; the wise-looking lean man, in the spectacles, is just in front of him, buried in

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