legs were bare, and her feet were cut by the stones. There was
absolute stolidity in her weather-beaten face, and the hands that
lighted her pipe were gnarled and black. Miss Lessing has a perfect
genius for getting at people, I think it is her good kind face through
which her soul shines. She asked the old woman if she was very
tired. The woman looked up, as if seeing us for the first time and
nodded her head. Then a queer look came into her face and she asked
Miss Lessing if we were the kind of people who had a new God. Miss
Lessing told her we were Christians. With a wistfulness that I have
never seen except in the eyes of a dog, she said, "If I paid your God
with offering and prayers, do you think he would make my work easier?
I am so tired!" Miss Lessing made her sit down by her on the grass,
and talked to her in Japanese about the new God who did not take any
pay for his help, and who could put something in her heart that would
give her strength to bear any burden. I could not understand much of
what they said but I had a little prayer-meeting all by myself.



HIROSHIMA, April, 1904.


Yesterday the American mail came after a three weeks' delay. None of
us were good for anything the rest of the day. Twenty letters and
fifty-two papers for me! Do you wonder that I almost danced a hole in
the parlor rug?

The home news was all so bright and cheery, and your letter was such a
bunch of comfort that I felt like a two year old. It was exactly like
you to think out that little farm party and get Jack into it as a