and were given the best place in the room (the warmest spot on the floor), and at once two tables of rice were brought in, and we were told that it was too late for us to think of going, and we must spend the night with them. This we agreed to do, and so fell to and did the best we could with the tables of rice which had been placed before us. In the meantime, the father did not come into the room where we were, but waited in an adjoining room till we had finished supper. He then came in, and we proceeded at once to set his mind at ease by telling him the object of our visit. He was at once greatly relieved when he learned that it was nothing more serious. I told him that the girl was a Christian and that she did not want to marry him, and that she would not prepare the sacrifice for ancestral worship. (I knew it was then being offered for his dead wife.) On hearing my statement he assured me that he did not want the girl, and would have nothing more to do with her. The business of the hour being finished, he lighted his long-stemmed pipe and gave himself up to comfort.
We soon found the two grown sons to be very talkative, and after answering many questions and talking about many things, the gospel not being left out, the time for retiring came round, and in company with a number of men we took blocks of wood for pillows and one comfort which had been given us, and, lying down on the warm floor where we had been sitting, tried to sleep. About midnight, just as I was getting off to sleep, I was aroused by the most woe-begone wailing and calling that I had ever heard. It was
