ells Christine about the "smokes" season, which lasts from
November to February:

It is a funny season when the air is so thick with what seems
fine sand that you can't see ten yards away, and the throat and
back of the nose and the whole head is dry and disagreeable,
just like influenza at home. Between these "smokes," which are
supposed to come from the Great Sahara Desert, the hot season
blazes forth in all its fury, and one feels so languid and
feeble, and wonders where one can go for a breath of air or a
mouthful of cold water. Then the snow on the moors and the
biting winds and the sea waves of your cold land sing their
siren songs.

No wonder Christine wrote back:

How I should love to take you bodily out of African heat and
work and give you a long sweet holiday at The Croft, with your
face to the greenest field in Scotland, and the great hills and
the fresh caller air everywhere. The blossom, white and pink,
the laburnum, the heavy masses of hawthorn, the sweet odours of
wallflower, the calling of the blackbirds, the mossy lawn, the
shady glade with birch trees and wild hyacinths and baby birdies
in the hedges, and the glorious warm spring sunshine gliding
through the leaves--how you would love them all!

Kind hearts at home knew of the longing for a change that sometimes came
to Ma, and one of the ladies of the Church, Miss Cook, like a fairy
godmother, quietly arranged that she should take a trip to the Canary
Islands, and paid all the cost. Ma felt it was a very selfish thing for
her to accept when there were others who also needed a rest, but the
doctors said:

"Ma, if you go you will be able for a lot of work yet."

"In that case," she replied, "I'll go." She took Janie with her.

It was her first real holiday, for she had nothing to do but bask in the
sunshine among the flowers and be petted by everybody, especially by
Mr. and Mrs. Edisbury, who managed the hotel at which she stayed. What a
time of joy it was! "From the first hour we arrived in fear and
trembling," she said, "to the hour we left with a heart full to
overflowing, our visit was a delicious vision of every kind of
loveliness."

[Illustration]

She was not long in the hotel before she heard that Mrs. Edisbury had a
little lame son, nine years old, named Ratcliffe, who could only walk
about on crutches. She could hardly walk herself then, and her tender
he