glish missionaries, the
native teacher with his congregation assembled around him, the waving
cocoa-nuts, the picturesque huts on the beach, the deep blue sea, the
glorious sunshine, the beauty and the peace. It was a combination
after your mother's heart, which she greatly enjoyed, resting
tranquilly under the trees, fanned by the refreshing trade-wind. You
will remember her marked kindness of manner in giving encouragement to
the missionaries in their work. It was another instance of her broad
sympathies.

In attempting to give a description of your dear mother's fine
character, I cannot omit her splendid courage. I have referred to it
as shown on the sea. You who have followed her with the hounds, as
long as she had strength to sit in the saddle, will never forget her
pluck and skill. Her courage never failed her. It upheld her undaunted
through many illnesses.

And now I turn to that part of the work of her life by which your dear
mother is best known to the outer world. Her books were widely read by
English-speaking people, and have been translated into the language of
nearly every civilised nation. The books grew out of a habit, early
adopted when on her travels, of sitting up in bed as soon as she awoke
in the morning, in her dressing-jacket, and writing with pencil and
paper an unpretending narrative of the previous day's proceedings, to
be sent home to her father. The written letter grew into the
lithographed journal, and the latter into the printed book, at first
prepared for private circulation, and finally, on completion of our
voyage round the world, for publication. The favourable reception of
the first book was wholly unexpected by the writer. She awoke and
found herself famous.

Her popularity as a writer has been won by means the simplest, the
purest, and most natural which can be conceived. Not a single unkind
or ungenerous thought is to be found in any book of hers. The
instruction and knowledge conveyed, if not profound, are useful and
interesting to readers of all classes. The choice of topics is always
judicious. A bright and happy spirit glows in her pages, and it is
this which makes the books attractive to all classes. They were read
with pleasure by Prince Bismarck, as he smoked his evening pipe, as
well as by girls at school. Letters of acknowledgment used to reach
your mother from the bedside of the aged and the sick, from the
prairies of America, the backwoods of Canada, and the lonely
s