OWING to the extremely isolated situation of Pitcairn Island, and the uncertainty that attends every effort to reach it again should one venture beyond its narrow limits, the islanders had hitherto, with very few exceptions, been satisfied to spend all their lives together, rather than run the risk of leaving their lone island home without having an idea when they would see it again. In a period of twenty-seven years only five had left the island to visit other places, all being men; but in January, 1886, for the first time an island woman left her home and family, to begin life anew in a distant land. To leave behind and forever the scenes of earlier years, the fond parents and brothers and sisters, and the old life of simple duties and pleasures, to enter upon a scene of life new and untried—indeed, scarcely dreamed of—needed great courage. This she displayed, being guided by her high sense of the duty she owed her husband, who, after a stay of five years and a half, was about to return to his native land. The pain of parting from parents, whose tender love had watched over her whole life, and from brothers, sisters, and friends who cherished her, and who prized her love and friendship, was bravely borne. Only a short time, less than a day, was allowed them in making preparations for their departure, and when the hour of parting came, the procession that followed them to the landing place was like that of a funeral, as all knew that the separation would be final. In less than a year after reaching her new home she passed away, the cold winter in a foreign land proving too severe for a constitution always delicate. In October of the same year, 1886, on the eighteenth day of the month, there arrived the British man-of-war _Pelican_, whose captain had courteously and kindly received on board, at Tahiti, an American missionary, John I. Tay by name, a member of the body of Christians known as Seventh-day Adventists. Wishing to reach Pitcairn Island for the purpose of setting before the people what he believed were truths hitherto unknown to them, he found passage, as before stated, on board the _Pelican_. He was treated by all the officers and men with the greatest consideration and courtesy, and was successful, during the passage, in awakening sufficient interest among some of the ship’s company to lead them to inquire and search further into the subjects presented in the books they received from him. [Illustration: HATTIE ANDRE’S CLASS.]