One of her most loving and diligent little correspondents was Christine Grant Millar Orr, who stayed in Edinburgh, and was, at this time, just thirteen, a clever girl, fond of writing stories and poems, and as good as she was clever. Her fresh young heart went out to the weary and lonely old lady in the African bush who chatted to her so charmingly. "You have a genius for letter-writing," she told Ma. "Your letters are so full of news and yet so full of love and tenderness and your own dear self." Here is a bit from one of Ma's letters to her: What a bonnie morning this is! It will be dark and cold with you. It is half-past six, and I am in the little verandah which is my sanctum. We have had breakfast, but I am not yet able to do any work, as I need an hour or so to get the steam up. So I shall bid you a good-morning, and just wish you could be here to enjoy our bush, and cocoa-nut and oil and wine palms which surround us, all wrapped in a bewitching lovely blue haze from the smoke of the wood fire. Yes, you would even enjoy the pungent smell of the bush smoke, and would think there were few places like Calabar.... But an hour later! Oh, it _will_ be hot! Ma thus tells Christine about the "smokes" season, which lasts from November to February: It is a funny season when the air is so thick with what seems fine sand that you can't see ten yards away, and the throat and back of the nose and the whole head is dry and disagreeable, just like influenza at home. Between these "smokes," which are supposed to come from the Great Sahara Desert, the hot season blazes forth in all its fury, and one feels so languid and feeble, and wonders where one can go for a breath of air or a mouthful of cold water. Then the snow on the moors and the biting winds and the sea waves of your cold land sing their siren songs. No wonder Christine wrote back: How I should love to take you bodily out of African heat and work and give you a long sweet holiday at The Croft, with your face to the greenest field in Scotland, and the great hills and the fresh caller air everywhere. The blossom, white and pink, the laburnum, the heavy masses of hawthorn, the sweet odours of wallflower, the calling of the blackbirds, the mossy lawn, the shady glade with birch trees and wild hyacinths and baby birdies in the hedges, and the glorious warm spring sunshine gliding through the leaves--how you would love them all! Kind hearts at home knew of the longing for a change that sometimes came to Ma, and one of the ladies of the Church, Miss Cook, like a fairy godmother, quietly arranged that she should take a trip to the Canary Islands, and paid all the cost. Ma felt it was a very selfish thing for her to accept when there were others who also needed a rest, but the doctors said: "Ma, if you go you will be able for a lot of work yet."