Two dozen short stories from the most prolific American moralist of his day: a step-mother winning over a hostile household, a young mother learning patience, a brother tempted at his desk, a girl's experiment in kindness. The mission of the title is domestic - charity that begins with a temper held in check and a hard word left unsaid. Arthur wrote to instruct and outsold nearly everyone who wrote to entertain, and his middle-class homes, with their small economies and quarrels, are drawn from close observation. Fifty-nine plates of home and warmth by painters including Eastman Johnson and George Inness, from 1832 to 1920, echo the domestic scenes and small charities of Arthur's tales.