remailliere can either read or write.

Yesterday there was a funeral held in one of the little villages, and
the mingling of pathos and humour made one realize more vividly than
ever how "all the world's akin." A young mother had died who could
have been saved if her folk had realized the danger in time and sent
for the doctor. She was lying in a rude board coffin in the bare
kitchen. As space was at a premium the casket had been placed on the
top of the long box which serves as a residence for the family rooster
and chickens. They kept popping their heads, with their round, quick
eyes out through the slats, and emitting startled crows and clucks at
the visitors. The young woman was dressed in all her outdoor
clothing; a cherished lace curtain sought to hide the rough, unplaned
boards of the coffin--for it had been hewn from the forest the day
before. The depth of her husband's grief was evidenced by the fact
that he had spent his last and only two dollars in the purchase, at
the Nameless Cove general store, of the highly flowered hat which
surmounted his wife's young careworn but peaceful face as she lay at
rest.

I saw for the first time an old custom preserved on the coast. Before
the coffin was closed all the family passed by the head of the
deceased and kissed the face of their loved one for the last time,
while all the visitors followed and laid their hands reverently on the
forehead. Only when the master of ceremonies, who is always specially
appointed, had cried out in a sonorous voice, "Any more?" and met with
no response, was the ceremony of closing the lid permitted.

Surely the children are the one and only hope of this country. Through
them we may trust to raise the moral standard of the generations to
come, but it is going to be a very slow process to make any headway
against the ignorance and absence of desire for better things which
prevails so largely here.

I must tell you of the latest addition to our family. On the first
boat in the spring there arrived a family, brought by neighbours, to
say what the Mission could do for them. I think I have never seen a
more forlorn sight than this group presented when they stepped from
the steamer. There was the father (the mother is dead), an elderly
half-witted cripple capable neither of caring for himself nor for his
children, four boys of varying sizes, and a girl of fourteen in the
last stages of tuberculosis. The family were nearly frozen,
half-starved,