So far from decreasing in number after the medical force had been lessened by half, the stream of patients became larger than ever. A few weeks after Dr. Kahn had gone, Dr. Stone said, in a letter to Dr. Danforth: "For a long time I have been wanting to write to you, but have been so pressed with work that I had to let my correspondence suffer. Now I find that I must write to you to let you know how crowded we are already, at this season when we generally have a scarcity of patients, as it is Chinese New Year. Now that our work is better known we seem to draw a better class of people. I don't mean very rich people, but the well-to-do, thrifty class, who earn their way by labour. Just now I have to accommodate seven private patients who are paying their own way, with only two private rooms at my disposal. So what do you think I do? I had to put one in our linen room, one in the sewing room, one in a bathroom, and finally, as a last resort, we had to put one in the nurses' dining-room.... We generally have to put patients on the floor in summer, but I am afraid we will not have enough room to accommodate more even on the floor." Dr. Stone's dispensary patients soon averaged a thousand a month, and as the people's confidence grew, her surgical work also became much heavier. In 1906 she reported: "In looking over the record for the year we realize that we have advanced decidedly in gaining confidence with the people. _Tai-tais_ (ladies of rank) who formerly refused operations, returned to us for help." Often her work kept her busy far into the night and she not infrequently fell asleep from sheer exhaustion as she was carried home, in her sedan chair, from some difficult case in the country. Yet her work was well done. The tribute of a fellow-missionary was well deserved: "Dr. Stone is a tower of strength in herself and with her trained assistants carries the large work here nobly. She has been eminently successful in surgical cases and is having more and more to do in this line." Another, working in a different station, wrote, "It was my happy fortune to be the guest of another ideal Chinese woman, Dr. Mary Stone, at Kiukiang. I saw her in her model hospital, where every little wheel of the complicated machinery was adjusted to perfect nicety."