’July 21.—­I was finishing my sermon for the soldiers to-morrow at 11.30, when Mr. Kissling came in to say that the schooner just come into the harbour was the vessel which had been sent to bring Mr. and Mrs. Nihill from Nengone or Mare Island.  He was in very bad health when he went there, and great doubts were entertained as to his coming back.  I was deputed to go and see.  I ran a good part of the way to the town on to the pier, and there heard that Mr. Nihill was dead.  An old acquaintance of Mrs. Nihill was on the pier, so I thought I should be in the way, and came back, told Mrs. Kissling, and went on to the Judge’s, and told Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Selwyn.  Whilst there we saw a boat land a young lady and child on the beach just below the house, and they sent me down.  Pouring with rain here on the beach, taking shelter in a boat-house with her brother, I found this poor young widow; and so, leaning on my arm, she walked up to the house.  I just waited to see Mrs. Selwyn throw her arms round her neck, and then walked straight off, feeling that the furious rain and wind chimed in with a violent struggle which was just going on in my own mind.  I go through such scenes firmly enough at the time, but when my part is over I feel just like a child, and I found the tears in my eyes; for the universal sympathy which has been expressed by everyone here for the lonely situation of the Nihills at Nengone made me feel almost a personal interest in them.  He was a good linguist, and his loss will be severely felt by the Bishop.

’August 14.—­I marked out to-day some pretty places for the two wooden houses for the “Southern Cross” sailors at Kohimarama (Focus of Light), a quiet retired spot, with a beautiful sparkling beach, the schooner lying just outside the little bay a third of a mile off.  Forty or fifty acres of flat pasturage, but only sixteen properly cleared, and then an amphitheatre of low hills, covered with New Zealand vegetation.  I passed fine ferns to-day quite thirty feet in the stem, with great spreading-fronds, like branches of the Norfolk Island pine almost.

’On the 17th of August came the welcome mail from home.  “Oh what a delight it is to see your dear handwriting again!” is the cry in the reply.  “Father’s I opened first, and read his letter, stopping often with tears of thankfulness in my eyes to thank God for enabling him not to be over-anxious about me, and for the blessing of knowing that he was as well as usual, and also because his work, so distasteful to him, was drawing to a close.  Then I read Fan’s, for I had a secret feeling that I should hear most from her about Alfington.’

On the evening of that day he wrote to Fanny.  In answer to the expression of the pain, of separation, he says:—­