nd
coughed all the time. She promised supper at 8 o'clock, but kept us
waiting till 10 p.m., and then a terrible repast of batter appeared in a
big tin dish, and everyone except me ate it, and everyone drank my wine.
Then six children and their parents lay in one tiny room, and I and a
nurse occupied the hot supper-room, and thus we lay until the cold
morning came, and I felt very ill.

So the day began, and it did not improve. I was sick all the time until
I could neither think nor see. The poor prince could do nothing, of
course.

[Page Heading: ILLNESS AT KASVIN]

At last we came to a rest-house, and I felt I could go no further. I was
quite unconscious for a time. Then they told me it was only two hours to
Kasvin, and somehow they got me on board the motor-car, and the horrible
journey began again. Every time the car bumped I was sick. Of course we
punctured a tyre, which delayed us, and when we got into Kasvin it was 9
o'clock. The Tartar lifted me out of the car, and I had been told that I
might put up at a room belonging to Dr. Smitkin, but where it was I had
no idea, and I knew there would be no one there. So I plucked up courage
to go to the only English people in the place--the Goodwins, with whom I
had stayed on my way up--and ask for a bed. This I did, and they let me
spread my camp-bed in his little sitting-room. I was ill indeed, and
aching in every bone.

The next day I had to go to Smitkin's room. It was an absolutely bare
apartment, but someone spread my bed for me, and there were some Red
Cross nurses who all offered to do things. The one thing I wanted was
food, and this they could only get at the soldiers' mess two miles away.
So all I had was one tin of sweet Swiss milk. The day after this I
decided I must quit, whatever happened, and get to Tehran, where there
are hotels. After one night there I was taken to a hospital. I was alone
in Persia, in a Russian hospital, where few people even spoke French!

On March 19th an English doctor rescued me. He heard I was ill, and came
to see me, and took me off to be with his wife at his own home at the
Legation. I shall never forget it as long as I live--the blessed change
from dirty glasses and tin basins and a rocky bed! What does illness
matter with a pretty room, and kindness showered on one, and everything
clean and fragrant? I have a little sitting-room, where my meals are
served, and I have a fire, a bath, and a garden to sit in.

God bless thes