able opponents to
encounter at any time. Therefore it behoves us to possess our souls in
patience, and only to indulge at intervals in the right to grumble
which is by virtue of tradition ours. We have already been here a day
and a half, and we know not how much longer it will be before the
curtain rises and the first act of the drama can begin.

These boats are far from large and none too comfortable. We have taken
ten days to come from Liverpool. Think of that, you who disdain to
cross the water in anything but an ocean greyhound! What hardships we
poor missionaries endure! Incidentally I want to tell you that my
fellow passengers arch their eyebrows and look politely amused when I
tell them to what place I am bound. I ventured to ask my room-mate if
she had ever been on Le Petit Nord. I wish you could have seen her
face. I might as well have asked if she had ever been exiled to
Siberia! I therefore judge it prudent not to thirst too lustily for
information, lest I be supplied with more than I desire or can
assimilate at this stage. I shall write you again when I board the
coastal steamer, which I am credibly informed makes the journey to St.
Antoine once every fortnight during the summer months. Till then, _au
revoir_.

_Run-by-Guess, June 15_

I landed on the wharf at St. John's to be met with the cheering
information that the steamer had left for the north two days before.
This necessitated a delay of twelve days at least. Will all the babies
at the Orphanage be dead before I arrive on the scene of action? Shall
I take the next boat back and be in England before the coastal steamer
comes south to claim me? Conflicting emotions disturb my troubled
soul, but "on and always on!"

The island boasts a railroad of which the rural inhabitants are
inordinately proud. Just prior to my arrival a daily service had been
inaugurated. Formerly the passenger trains ran only three times a
week. There are no Sunday trains. As I had so much time to spare, I
decided that I could not do better than spend some of it in going
across the island and thus see the Southern part of the country,
catching my boat at Come-by-Chance Junction on the return journey.
Truth compels me to add that I find myself a sadder and wiser woman. I
left St. John's one evening at six o'clock, being due to arrive at our
destination at eight o'clock the following night. There is no
unpleasant "hustle" on this railway, and you may wait leisurely and