Her enthusiasm for her work doubtless made it hard not only for her to measure her own strength, but also for others to estimate it.  But toward the close of the summer of 1905 it became evident to all, even to herself, that she had been overtaxing herself and must lighten her work.  “Sister makes me take beef juice, milk, and bread and butter,” she said in a letter to Mrs. Joyce.  “Everybody tells me I am thin, but I am doing my best to get fat.  Every afternoon I devote all the time to get well.  I sleep after dinner, then go out riding for fresh air, so you see your little girl does live high and extravagantly.”

During this summer she received news of the serious illness of her friend and foster-father, Bishop Joyce.  This was a great source of anxiety and sorrow to her.  “How I wish I had means to go right to his dear presence to tell him how I revere and love him for what he has done for me, and for what he is to the world,” she wrote his wife.  “I envy I-lien’s privilege of being there.  It must be a great comfort to be able to put one’s heart-full of love and sympathy into little services that he may need at this time.”

The death of this true friend was a great grief to her, both on her own account and because of the sorrow it brought to the family which she so loved.  “I loved Bishop as I did my own father,” she said in a letter to Mrs. Joyce.  “Now I rejoice for both of them because they have heard the Master’s ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’” Then she added, “I will ask him to ask the Master to let me work a little longer on earth.  Of course if he sees the reason why I shouldn’t he will not do it.”

[Illustration:  The Anna Stone Memorial]

For a time it seemed as if her desire were to be granted, for when autumn came she was able to open the Women’s School at the usual time, and to teach in it each morning.  By keeping the afternoons free for rest she gained so much that she could write:  “I feel very grateful for my health.  I am up every day for my work.  It is a busy life, but a very happy one.”  Dr. Stone had decided in the autumn that unless Anna gained a great deal within the next few weeks she would send her to the mountains for the winter, in the hope that the dry air would help her.  But, as she said, “Anna hates to hear us talk about it because she does not want to leave her pet work.”  And Anna soon seemed so much stronger that the doctor did not insist on her going.

Anna wrote happily of the Christmas exercises in the school.  “The women for the first time attempted to have a public programme for the happy season.  They had a dialogue, three new songs, and acted out shepherds in the night watch and Herod in his trouble.  Then they had a tree on which were little fancy trinkets which the women made for their friends.  They had a joyous time because they worked for it.”  She carried the work until the Chinese New Year vacation, which began about the middle of January, and then