like her in the world."

The same year that little Ida was born, Miss Howe and Miss Hoag had
succeeded in starting a school for girls in Kiukiang, the first girls'
school in that part of China. In this school, as soon as she was old
enough, Ida began to study. When she was nine years old Miss Howe went to
America and took the little girl with her. They were in San Francisco at
this time, and there Ida attended a mission school for the Chinese girls of
the city. As most of the other pupils belonged to Cantonese families, and
spoke a Chinese dialect very different from that of Kiukiang, she did not
learn very much at school; but her stay in America, at the age when it is
so easy for children to acquire languages, helped her very much in
learning English. On her way back to China Miss Howe stayed in Japan for
several months, and there again Ida attended school.

On returning to China, Miss Howe was asked to work in a newly opened
station of the Methodist Mission at Chung King, a city of western China,
located on the Yangtse River many miles above Kiukiang, and many days'
journey into the interior. During their stay there, Ida continued her
studies, tutored by Miss Howe and Miss Wheeler, of the same mission. The
stay in Chung King lasted only two years, for in 1886 the mission compound
was completely destroyed by a mob, and the missionaries had to flee for
their lives. For two weeks Ida, with some other Chinese girls, was in
hiding in the home of a friendly carpenter, while the missionaries were
hidden in the governor's yamen. At the end of that time they all succeeded
in making their escape from the city, and the little girl, who had already
had so many more experiences in her short life than the average Chinese
woman has in threescore years and ten, had the new adventure of a trip of
several days through the gorges of the Yangtse River. The river is always
dangerous at this point because of the swift rapids, but was so unusually