One day in August, Mar Yohanan said to Miss Fiske, "You get ready, and I find girls." She devoted that month and the next to preparation for her expected charge. But the day came for opening the school, and not one pupil had been obtained. The teacher was feeling somewhat anxious, when, from her window in the second story, she saw Mar Yohanan crossing the court, with a girl in either hand. One of them was his own niece, Selby, of Gavalan, seven years of age; the other, Hanee, of Geog Tapa, about three years older. They were not very inviting in outward appearance; but it did not take Miss Fiske long to reach the door, where the bishop met her, and placing their little hands in hers, said, in his broken English, "They be your daughters; no man take them from your hand." She wrote to a friend an account of her success, adding, "I shall be glad to give them to the Lord Jesus, and love to look on them as the beginning of my dear school." These two pupils were supported by ladies in Maiden, Massachusetts, and the number soon increased to six; but fifteen days after, two of them, finding the gate open, suddenly left for home. Their teacher did not think it advisable to follow them; nor did she see them again till, ten years after, an invitation for a reunion of all her scholars brought two whom she did not recognize. She said, "Perhaps you were here under Mrs. Grant?" "No, we were your own scholars for fifteen days, and we are very sorry we ran away." They are now both useful Christians, and the places they left in 1843 were speedily filled by others. The care of the school was much more exhausting than its instruction. When the teacher went out, and when she came in, she must take her pupils with her, for she dared not leave them to themselves. Indeed, so strong were the feelings of their friends, that they allowed them to remain only on condition that they should lodge with or near their teacher, and never go out except in her company. A native teacher rendered such help as he could, needing much teaching himself; and everything combined to make the principal feel that hers was to be a work of faith and prayer. As the first of January approached, she thought how sweet it would be to be remembered by dear friends at Mount Holyoke; and when it came, she wrote to Miss Whitman, "In looking over Miss Lyon's suggestions for the observance of the day, last year, I cannot tell you how I felt as I read the words, 'Perhaps next new year's day will find some of you on a foreign shore. If so, we pledge you a remembrance within these consecrated walls.' I thought not then that privilege would be mine; but since it is, I count your prayers the greatest favor you can confer."