she was always made
comfortable and happy.

Once Government officials found her so ill that they lifted her into the
motor-car and took her down to the Mission House at Itu. Something rare
and precious was there, a bonnie white child, the daughter of the doctor
missionary. During the first few days when Ma was fighting for her life,
little Mamie often went to her side and just stood and stroked her hand
for a while, and then stole quietly away.

When the turn for the better came, she charmed Ma back to health by her
winning ways. For hours they swung together in the hammock on the
verandah, and laughed and talked and read, their two heads bent over the
pages of _Chatterbox_ and _The Adviser_, and over the _Hippopotamus
Book_ and _Puddleduck_, and other entrancing stories. Some times they
got so absorbed in these that time was forgotten, and "Oh, bother!" they
said when the sound of the gong called them to meals. Ma was still a
little child at heart.

After she returned to Use a new church was opened at Itu, and as she was
not able to go down she wrote this letter to Mamie:

I may not get to the big function, which will make me rather
cross, as I have looked forward to it. Anyhow if I am not there
will you pop my collection into the plate for me, like a bonnie
lassie? I wish it were multiplied by ten.

I wanted you and me to have a loan of that pretty picture-book
of your mother's. It has all the blouses and hats and togs that
they keep in the store in Edinburgh, and I was just set on our
sitting together and picking out a nice coat and hat and
pinafore, all of our own choosing, for you to wear in Scotland.
Oh! but you may be going to England? Oh well, they are much the
same. But here we can't do it, for it will be too late to get
them for you to land in. Anyhow ask that dear Mummy of yours to
help you to choose, and you will buy them with these "filthy
lucre" pennies. Mind, the Bible calls them "filthy lucre," so I
am not saying bad words!

Now, dear wee blue eyes, my bonnie birdie, are we never to have
a play again or a snuggly snug? We shall see, but I shall never
forget those days with old Brown and Mittens and the Puddleduck
relations, and all your gentle ways and winsome plays. Be Mama's
good lassie and help her with all the opening day's work, and
you yourself will be the bonniest there. If I am there you will
sit besi