ears he was with us. Then we
would hear a call, and Ponnamal (we used to call her the Princess, but
dignity gives place to something more human at such moments) would come
flying down the path with a face which made words superfluous. Then
there was the scramble out of the bandy, and the handing down of babies
and exclamations about them; and all the nurses seemed to be kissing us
at once and making their amazed babies kiss us, and everything was for
one happy moment bewilderingly delightful.

Then there was the run round the cradles in which smaller babies were
sleeping, and an eager comparing of notes as to the improvement of each.
And if there were no improvement, how well one remembers the smothered
sense of disappointment--smothered in public at least, lest the nurses
should be discouraged. Then came a cup of tea on the mat in the little
front room, where four white hammock-cradles hung, one in each corner;
while Ponnamal sat beside me with three babies on her knee and two or
three more somewhere near her. The babies used to study me in their wise
and serious fashion, and then make careful advances. And so we would
make friends.

Ponnamal had always much to tell about the exhaustless kindness of the
doctors and their wives and the lady superintendent of the hospital. And
the chief Tamil medical Evangelist had been true to his name, which
means Blessedness. Once, in much distress of mind, we sent a little babe
to the nursery, hardly daring to hope for her. When she arrived, the
doctors were both away on tour, and the medical Evangelist was in
charge. He attended to her at once, and by God's grace upon his work was
able to relieve the little child, who has prospered ever since.

But I must leave unrecorded many acts of helpfulness. In those early
days of doubt and difficulty, almost forgotten by us now, we beckoned to
our "partners which were in the other ship," and their Master and ours
will not forget how they held out willing hands and helped us.

It was not always plain sailing, even at Neyoor. "You are fighting Satan
at a point upon which he is very sensitive; he will not leave you long
in peace," wrote an experienced friend. On Palm Sunday, 1907, our first
little band of young girls, fruit of this special work, confessed Christ
in baptism, and we stood by the shining reach of water, and tasted of a
joy so pure and thrilling that nothing of earth may be likened to it. A
fortnight later we were ordered to the