Miss Bird was now alone in the world, but she had a devoted friend in Dr. Bishop, who had for some years attended her sister and was with her in her last illness. He had several times asked Miss Bird to marry him, but she had always said that her heart was given to her sister. Now in her loneliness, he repeated his request and she at last consented, and they were married in the spring after her sister’s death. She was fifty, ten years older than her husband. He promised that when the need of travel awoke in her, she should go to whatever end of the earth beckoned to her. He used to say that the only rival he had in her heart was the high tableland of Central Asia. As it turned out she never left him for long. He became ill soon after their marriage, and was almost a complete invalid till he died five years afterwards. Dr. Bishop was a man of noble character, and Mrs. Bishop was devoted to him and mourned him all her life. She was now altogether alone except for her friends, and there was no one to keep her from the long and dangerous journeys in wild countries which she loved. She, who was always ill when in civilised countries, often spending weeks on her sofa because of pains in her back, seemed to be able to endure anything when she was travelling and leading a wild, free life. One thing that helped her was that she was able to eat anything. Dr. Bishop said that she had the appetite of a tiger and the digestion of an ostrich. At first after her husband’s death, she busied herself with bringing out her books of travel and with caring for the poor people amongst whom her sister had worked. She also wished to learn nursing, and spent three months in London in the surgical wards of a hospital. Dr. Bishop had been much interested in medical missions, and she decided to found a mission hospital in his memory. It was nearly three years after his death when she started on her next long journey, going first to India and on to Kashmere, where she thought of founding her hospital.