Nor is the doctor quite as sanguine as his wife over this project for a general advance in work for women even in Siam where he knows the situation intimately: “I sympathise with you heartily in your wish to accomplish much for Siam before our stay here ... is over. And it may be that the privilege will be given you of working more for the women of the land. But there are great difficulties in the way of this and there will be great trials and disappointments awaiting you. I fear your distance from Siam lends ‘enchantment to the view,’ and makes you forget what the people are—heathen in heart and custom of life. You ought to know that not a few here are opposed to the principle of female industrial schools.... It is a very serious question you propose with reference to bringing a young lady out with you to reside in your family.” THE “TROY BRANCH” INSTITUTES THE PROJECT Mrs. House’s plea for the women of Siam found a response very near home. It so happened that in the spring of 1872 Secretaries Irving and Ellinwood, of the Foreign Board, addressed a meeting of the Synod of Albany, held at Troy, New York. The Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany met at the same place, and united with the Synod to hear the addresses. The result was the organisation of a branch of the Women’s Board to cover the Troy Presbytery, whence the name “Troy Branch.” The organising group not only undertook to establish auxiliaries in their respective churches but resolved as a Branch to assume as their first and special object a boarding school for girls in Bangkok; and to inaugurate this project they commissioned Mrs. House, who was known personally to many of the women of the new organisation. To begin the work the Branch agreed to provide three thousand dollars; and for the next four years they raised some one thousand four hundred and forty dollars. So it happened that Mrs. House became the official head of the projected boarding school for girls. The enterprise which was now committed to her was much larger in scope than the work she already had under way; and even with small beginnings there was need of an assistant to share the burden, lighten the responsibility and aid in council. While Mrs. House was in correspondence with several young women whose interests had been turned towards Siam by her addresses a young woman of her own church at Waterford, Arabella Anderson, offered herself. ARABELLA ANDERSON-NOYES