She never grumbled to her correspondents, even when in the grip of nervous debility. Her letters are filled with loving enquiries about people, especially young people, at home. She kept them all in mind, followed their lives with interest, and was always anxious to know if they had consecrated themselves to the service of Christ. "Life is so great and so grand," she would write, and "eternity is so real and so terrible in its issues. Surely my lads out here are not to take the crown from my boys at home." Now and again, however, a strain of sadness is perceptible in her letters, perhaps due to the state of her health and her isolation, as well as the outlook abroad, which was then unrestful. "All is dark," she said, "except above. Calvary stands safe and sure." Often she wondered what worldlings did in the midst of all their entanglements and the mysteries of life and death without some higher hope and strength. "Life apart from Christ," she would say, "is a dreadful gift." Her own future loomed uncertain, and the thought of the children began to weigh upon her mind: "It is not likely I shall ever go home again. I feel as if I did not want to. How could I leave the bairns in this dreadful land? Who would mother them in this sink of iniquity?" And soon afterwards she wrote: "I do not think I could bear the parting with my children again. If I be spared a few years more I shall have a bit of land and build a wee house of my own near one of the principal stations, and just stay out my days there with my bairns and lie down among them. They need a mother's care and a mother's love more than ever as they grow up among heathen people, and I could do a little, through them, for the dark homes and hearts around, and it would be a house and home for them when I am gone, where the missionaries could be near them." Janie, the faithful, unselfish soul who had been with her from babyhood, was at last married. "Her husband," she said, "is my best scholar, and if his social standing is not the highest, he is a real companion to her and to my bairns, who worship him." The ceremony was performed by "Ma," and the entry, in Efik, in a tiny marriage register runs as follows:-- _December 21, 1899. Janie Annan took oath before Obon (chief), Okon Ekpo, and Erne Ete, that she will marry Akibo Eyo alone, Akibo also took oath that he will marry Jane alone. They went to the farm with Eme Ete. M.M.S._