It was a bitter grief to Isabella when her father died in 1858. She spoke of him as the mainspring and object of her life. Her mother now settled in Edinburgh, and Isabella paid frequent visits to the Highlands and the Hebrides, and interested herself much in the condition of the Highlanders, who were then very poor. She helped many to emigrate, and worked hard to provide outfits for them. She was often ill, but wrote a great deal whilst lying on her sofa; she brought out another book about America, and sent many articles to magazines. Writing was very easy to her. After some years in Edinburgh, Mrs. Bird died, a crushing sorrow to her two daughters. Isabella wrote: “She has been my one object for the eight years of her widowhood.” Isabella sought comfort in working for the poor people in Edinburgh and tried to do something to get rid of the miserable slums in that city. She wrote a book about them to rouse people to a sense of shame. Her hard work was often interrupted by distressing illness; she suffered a great deal from her spine, but even when ill, she managed to read and study. The doctors recommended a voyage for her health, and parting with much sorrow from her sister, she started in 1872 for New York and went on from there to New Zealand and then to the Sandwich Islands. She loved the sea and wrote that it was like living in a new world, it was so free, so fresh, so careless, so unfettered. The beauty of the Sandwich Islands fascinated her, and the book she wrote about her visit to them helped others to enjoy what she had seen. [Illustration: _Photo: Elliott & Fry._ MRS. BISHOP (ISABELLA BIRD). ]