hospital work, and in the autumn they sailed for China. While they were in
America an old gentleman said to Ida, "I am glad you are going back to your
country as a physician. Your people need physicians more than they need
missionaries." The Chinese reverence for old age was too great to permit
Ida to contradict him, but turning to her friends she said quietly, "Time
is short--eternity is long." So it was not only as a physician, but as a
regularly appointed medical missionary that she returned to China.




III

SEVEN YEARS IN KIUKIANG


Quite a little anxiety was felt concerning the reception which the young
physicians would receive from the Chinese on their return to Kiukiang. A
foreign-trained Chinese woman physician had never been seen or heard of in
that section of China, and, scarcely, in all China, since Dr. Hü King Eng,
of Foochow, was the only other in the Empire at that time. The doctors' own
friends had long been asking when they were coming back, and when at last
the time arrived they had their plans all laid for welcoming them. The
missionaries had some doubts as to the propriety of a public ovation to two
young women, but the Chinese were so eager for it that they at last
consented, and from the moment the young doctors left the steamer until
they arrived at the gate of the mission compound, they were saluted with an
almost continuous fusillade of fire-crackers. Of course the noise attracted
curious crowds, and by the time they reached the Bund they were surrounded
by a host of their townspeople who were eager to get a glimpse of the