The American knows the Rio Secretary of the International Young Men’s Christian Association, and invites him to the steamer breakfast, of which nearly all now partake, both passengers and visitors. You and your husband are invited to be of the party to go ashore in that launch, and spend the day till four o’clock sight-seeing. You are advised to spend your nights in Petropolis; for it is beautiful up there, and a slight risk to stay down in the city at night on account of “the fever.” You prove during that first day in Rio that the narrow streets are lined with really interesting stores containing goods quite beautiful, but very expensive. You see French clothes and fine diamonds; brilliant birds, stuffed; and humming-birds set in gold for jewelry; feather flowers of the most beautiful colors, made from the natural, undyed plumage of tropical birds--crimson, pink and snow-white rose buds, pale pink morning-glories, scarlet coffee-cherries, all with green feather foliage. Such blossoms would not suffer in your bonnet if you wore them in the rain, but no one does it. You stop a moment at the large music-store, having its own and foreign publications, and there catch the first strains of a Brazilian Tango, the dance of Spanish rhythm which you find quite new and fascinating. You will hear this same rhythm many times before you leave Brazil, but will not find it used for dancing. You visit the large and elegant library building, containing they say one hundred and twenty thousand volumes, but see no readers. It was of royal origin long ago. You go to see the new Young Men’s Christian Association Building, the only one in Brazil, while your guide, Mr. Myron Clark, from Minneapolis, tells you the demand upon it in this port, and you wish it were not such a struggle to raise money for it. “The foreigners” are quite ready to contribute to the English hospital, for any of them may need its care; but the use of a Y. M. C. A. is not familiar to many of them. How shall it get the money it deserves?