At the age of sixty-seven Dorothea Beale took to cycling. At first she attempted a bicycle, but this was somewhat difficult at that advanced age, so she took the advice of her friends and rode, instead, a tricycle. Most mornings about seven o’clock she was to be seen riding along the Cheltenham streets. “The milkmen know how to keep out of my way,” she used laughingly to say. The tricycle was a source of great pleasure to her, as it enabled her to get out easily and quickly into quiet country, where she could enjoy the beauty and solitude of nature. Her writing became rather illegible, though in youth it was good. There is a story told of her which sounds to me rather the kind of anecdote that is applied to different people in succession. After a Scripture class a girl received back a written exercise with a remark by Dorothea Beale at the end. The girl gazed at the remark, looking at it in every possible way, but could not decipher it. The book was handed round the class, but no one could read the red-ink hieroglyphics. Finally some genius hit on the interpretation--“Write legibly!” The living monument of Dorothea Beale’s work is a testimony to her greatness of soul, her patience and her power to wait. Yet, curiously enough, she was in smaller things often very impetuous: sometimes she forgot decisions made hastily and difficulties ensued. All her life Dorothea Beale had to fight against extreme sensitiveness and shyness. She, who never shrank from any duty, however difficult, often shrank from the society of those who might be unsympathetic, and was sorely wounded by adverse criticism. Yet in a larger sense, she did not trouble about the judgment of others, accustomed as she was throughout life to submit herself to a Higher Judge. She found it difficult to make advances to other people and always welcomed the fearless, happy girls who ventured to treat her as a comrade and friend. No doubt this sensitiveness helped her much in her dealings with others. It gave her the power of sympathising, especially in times of sorrow and difficulty: one has only to read some of her letters to see how powerful she was in this way. A few extracts will illustrate this point:-- “I need not tell you I have felt much for you. One could not have wished the suffering prolonged, and yet one does not feel the loss less. Happily, one seems generally to forget, when all is over, the last painful incidents of the sickness, and to remember the past years. Few have had a more devoted mother. How proud she was of your success!” To another, on her father’s death:-- “I must write you one line of sympathy in this great sorrow. I know how much you loved your dear father and had longed for this visit, and now there will be a great blank. You will not think now, ‘how glad he will be if I do well’.” To one going through great spiritual struggle:--