tips and great exertions we got
our luggage out again. I should have been sorry to have lost my little
all for the second time.

This permission to serve with the Russian Red Cross was confirmed later
by a most kind letter from Sir Claude Macdonald, chairman of the St.
John's Committee, so we felt quite happy about our enterprise.

We could not start for Russia for another ten days. We were to be
inoculated against cholera for one thing, and then there were passports
and vises to get and arrangements for the journey to be made. The
ordinary route was by Aboe, Stockholm and Helsingfors, but we were very
strongly advised not to go this way, first, because of the possibility
of mines in the Baltic, and, secondly, because a steamer, recently
crossing that way, had been actually boarded, and some English people
taken off by the Germans. And we had no desire to be caught a second
time.

So it was decided to my great joy that we should travel all the way
round by land, through Sweden, through a little bit of Lapland, just
touching the Arctic Circle, through Finland and so to Petrograd. The
thought of the places we had to go through thrilled me to the
core--Karungi, Haparanda, Lapptrask, Torneo--the very names are as
honey to the lips.

* * * * *

One might have expected that all the kindness and hospitality would
cease on the departure of the majority of the party, but it was not so.
Invitations of all kinds were showered on us. Lunches were the chief
form of entertainment and very interesting and delightful they were.
There was a lunch at the British Legation, one at the French Legation,
one at the Belgian Legation where the minister was so pathetically glad
of any crumbs of news of his beloved country; a delightful dinner to
meet Prince Gustav of Denmark, an invitation to meet Princess Mary of
Greece, another lunch with Madame Tscherning, the president of the
Danish Council of Nurses, and the "Florence Nightingale of Denmark."
Altogether we should have been thoroughly spoilt if it had lasted any
longer! One of the most delightful invitations was to stay at Vidbek for
the remainder of our time, a dear little seaside place with beautiful
woods, just then in their full glory of autumnal colouring. It was
within easy reach of Copenhagen and we went in almost every day, for
one reason or another, and grew very fond of the beautiful old city.

The time came for us to say good-bye. I was very s