The new home was beautifully situated, overlooking the river and receiving constant south breezes, which made it cool and comfortable in summer.  It was hoped that in its quiet Mr. Hue might live for a number of years, and it was therefore decided that King Eng should return to America, to re-enter the Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia in the fall of 1892.  On the return trip she said to Mrs. Sites, who was with her, “I have learned to trust God fully, else how could I be going away from my sick father whose every move and cough I had learned to hear so quickly through all the hours of the night, and still my heart be at rest?” Mrs. Sites adds, “Personally, her companionship on the voyage was a continual joy to me, notwithstanding my alarming and wearisome struggle while in Montreal to get permission for her to re-enter this alarmingly exclusive country.”

Hue King Eng re-entered the Medical College in the autumn of 1892, graduating with honour the eighth of May, 1894.  She spent the following year in hospital work, being fortunate enough to be chosen as surgeon’s assistant in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, which gave her the privilege of attending all the clinics and lectures there.

III

BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA

In 1895 Dr. Hue returned to Foochow.  She at once began work in the Foochow Hospital for women and children, being associated with Dr. Lyon, who wrote at the end of the year’s work:  “Dr. Hue, by her faithfulness and skill, has built up the dispensary until the number of the patients treated far exceeds that of last year.  She has also been a great inspiration to our students, not only as teacher, but in right living and in Christian principles.”  The following year Dr. Lyon returned to America on her furlough, leaving the young physician in entire charge of the hospital work, a responsibility which she discharged so effectively that at the close of the year her co-labourers enthusiastically declared:  “Sending Hue King Eng to America for a medical education was providing for one of the greatest blessings that ever came to Foochow.  Skilled in her profession, kind and patient, Christlike in spirit, one of their very own, her influence cannot be measured.”

At about this time Dr. Hue was honoured by being appointed by His Excellency, Li Hung Chang, as one of the two delegates from China to the Women’s Congress held in London in 1898.  But she was very seriously ill with pneumonia that year, and for weeks it was feared that she could not recover.  A letter from Mrs. Lacy, then living in Foochow, reads:  “Dr. Hue King Eng has been lying at the gates of death for nearly three weeks.  Dr. Lyon said she was beyond all human aid.  Most earnest and constant prayers by the native Christians have been offered in her behalf.  We are glad to report a decided improvement in her condition although she is by no means out of danger yet.  Dr. Hue is a very valuable worker, not only a most successful physician, but a very superior instructor in medicine, and is very greatly beloved by both natives and foreigners, and it does not seem as if she could be spared.  We can but believe that God is going to honour the faith of His children and raise her up to do yet greater service for Him.”