The religious qualms and questions of my school days were still actively disturbing during that first college year, and I did not cease trying to get on comfortable footing concerning them, though knowing it could never be on the old footing. Miss Wilkins, a good orthodox Congregationalist, listening sympathetically to my doubts and difficulties, attempted to help me, finally urging me to let the doubts go and just pray. I tried hard to follow her advice. On my knees alone I prayed earnestly, but could get no awareness of a listening Father; still I prayed, but soon, to my shame and sorrow (and, yes, to my amusement, too), my mind having wandered, I found myself repeating the branches of the axillary artery which I had been studying that evening! I arose with a helpless feeling, convinced that it was useless to try further. The next day when I told Miss Wilkins, grieved, but a bit amused, too, she shook her head--at a loss whether to scold or to pet me. As soon as our first-year “exams” were over I was wild to get home. Shall I ever look forward to anything with the eagerness I looked to that first home-going? Belle, who had gone at the Christmas holidays, was less eager. I had set the date of arrival a day later than I intended reaching there, just to surprise them. When, on nearing Utica we saw the fertile Mohawk valley, in such contrast to the stony, more picturesque scenery of New England, we grew wild with delight. This was the home country; we were no longer on alien soil. And when the drumlins came in sight, we jumped from side to side of the car, hungrily regarding them. The conductor and the few passengers smiled indulgently; they knew we were going home! That final twenty-five-mile stretch was interminable, and when, at the last stop but one, three miles from our station, we saw our own drumlins, and the familiar houses and trees, my heart leaped for joy. My eyes were blinded with happy tears when the train pulled in. There was the very platform on which I had stood in the darkness months ago and torn myself from my sister’s embrace! There was the dear old rattly “stage” and the familiar driver to take us to the village! How good everyone about the station looked! I felt like hugging everybody. Our trunks were put on; the horses started; the bells jingled; the windows rattled in the old coach as we jolted along all too slowly over the mile that lay between me and Home!