'You have seen Miss Prankard, but you have not told me what you think of her. She was delighted with her visit to Scotland and with you all. You will be glad to hear that I have had some delightful letters from her. I wrote her, and she has written me in the most unrestrained way concerning her spiritual hopes and condition, and though we have never seen each other, yet we know more of each other's inmost life and soul than, I am quite certain, most lovers know of each other even after long personal courtship. It is quite delightful to think that even now we can talk by letter with perfect unreserve, and I tell _you_ this because I know you will be glad to hear it. I knew she was a pious girl, else I would not have asked her to come out to be a missionary's wife, but she turns out better even than I thought, and I am not much afraid as to how we shall get on together.' In the course of the autumn of 1874 Miss Prankard sailed, and in a letter to the writer, December 13, 1874, Gilmour thus refers to the close of his unusual but satisfactory courtship:-- 'I was married last week, Tuesday, December 8! 'Mrs. Meech's sister is Mrs. Gilmour. We never saw each other till a week before we were married, and my friends here drew long faces and howled at me for being rash and inconsiderate. What if you don't like each other? How then? It is for life! As if I did not know all this long ago. Well, the time came, the vessel was due at Shanghai, but would not come. Mr. Meech and I went down to Tientsin and waited there a fortnight, but no tidings. At last on the evening of Sabbath, November 29, a steamer's whistle was heard miles away down the river. It was Mr. Meech's turn to preach. After sermon he and I walked away down the river side to see what we could see. After a while a light hove round the last bend, then a green light, then the red light, then came the three lights of the steamer! We listened. It was the high-pressure engine of the steam launch which is used to lighten the deep-sea steamers before coming up the narrow river. Fifteen minutes more and she was at the landing stage. A friend went on board. Miss Prankard was on board the Taku, which was still outside the bar, waiting for water to bring her over and up to the settlement. The lighter was going to unload and start down the river at five A.M., and Meech and I went in her. About eight A.M. we met the steamer coming up, and when she came abreast we saw Miss Prankard on board, but could not get from our vessel to hers. The tide was favourable for running up, and they were afraid to lose a minute, so would not stop the steamer; we did not get on board till we reached the bund at Tientsin about eleven A.M. We started for Peking next day, got there on Thursday,