to feel as I do. Maybe I am. At any rate you will acknowledge that I
have done the right thing for once in coming away. I seem to have been
a general blot on the landscape, and with your help I have erased
myself. In the meanwhile, I wish to Heaven my heart would ossify!

The sole power that keeps me going now is your belief in me. You have
always claimed that I was worth something, in spite of the fact that I
have persistently proven that I was not. Don't you shudder at the
risk you are taking? Think of the responsibility of standing for me in
a Board of Missions! I'll stay bottled up as tight as I know how, but
suppose the cork _should_ fly?

Poor Mate, the Lord was unkind when he gave me to you for a cousin.

Well it's done, and by the time you get this I will probably be well
on my sea-sick way. I can't trust myself to send any messages to the
family. I don't even dare send my love to you. I am a soldier lady,
and I salute my officer.



ON SHIP-BOARD. August 8th, 1901.


It's so windy that I can scarcely hold the paper down but I'll make
the effort. The first night I came aboard, I had everything to
myself. There were eighty cabin passengers and I was the only lady on
deck. It was very rough but I stayed up as long as I could. The blue
devils were swarming so thick around me that I didn't want to fight
them in the close quarters of my state-room. But at last I had to go