Kiukiang, China,

Nov. 20th, 1874.

My Dear Sister Rose:

It is a long while since I wrote a letter to you, and I have two of yours that are unanswered. I have been extremely busy, and besides I find it is getting to be very hard work for me to write letters, so that I am almost falling out of practice.

My health was never better in my life than it has been for some months past, and I have great reason to be thankful to my Heavenly Father. Rev. H. H. Hall, who has been in America to recruit his health, returned to our Mission a couple of weeks ago, bringing with him a nice little woman from Michigan as his wife. To-morrow we expect the arrival of Miss Mason, M.D., who has been sent to us by the Cincinnati Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. When she comes there will be ten of us altogether in the Mission, which is quite a change from the state of things when I first arrived here, when Bro. Hart and I were the only ones to keep up our Sunday evening prayer-meeting. Bro. Ing (we have just learned) has accepted a position as Teacher under the Japanese Government on the island of Niphon, with a salary of $1,800 a year. I suppose he was ashamed to return home to his Conference.

We are getting along very pleasantly in our work, and I think all the missionaries here are devoted Christian men and women. Bro. Hart, however, has four little boys who are about as mean in some respects as it is possible for boys to become. (Missionaries' boys are often so). To give an instance: The other day I was returning from the city chapel, and just as I came to the gate a ragged, dirty Chinese boy came running up to me, with a basket of greasy cakes on his arm, such as are sold on the streets. Tears were streaming down his dirty face, and in a broken voice he began pouring out a doleful story, while for a time I could not understand one word from another. At last I found that those rogues of boys had taken some of his cakes from him, and when he asked for the cash they not only did not give him any (of course they had none), but beat him in the bargain. I felt as if I should like to flog the urchins, but when I told Mrs. Hart she simply declared they had been behaving "very naughty," and sent one of them down stairs with 15 or 20 cash to give to the mourning youth below.

To a Chinaman in distress the sight of cash is a perfect balm of Gilead; and when this lad beheld the magic coin, his tears did straightway cease to flow, leaving no marks but the little furrows which they had washed on his cheeks, and taking his money he bowed most politely, returned the most hearty thanks, and departed rejoicing. This is only one instance of the meanness of which these boys are capable, and which has made me profoundly ashamed of Young America.

Just now there is a great feast in celebration of the birthday of the Emperor's mother, and the streets are more handsomely decorated than we ever knew them to be. Overhead is stretched a curtain of red, blue, and yellow, forming a delightful shade from the rays of the sun, and extending from one side of the street to the other, and from the outer part