to order things, but to weigh them out, help to cut out and weigh the meat, &c., and am quite learned in the mysteries of the store-room, which to be sure is a curious place on board ship.  I hope you are well suited with a housekeeper:  if I were at home I could fearlessly advertise for such a situation.  I have passed through the preliminary steps of housemaid and scullerymaid, and now, having taken to serving out stores, am quite qualified for the post, especially after my last performance of making bread, and even a cake.’

This seems to be the right place for the description which the wife of Chief Justice Martin gives of Mr. Patteson at this period.  The first meeting, she says, ’was the beginning of an intimate friendship, which has been one of the great blessings of our lives.  After a short stay at St. John’s College, he came into residence at St. Stephen’s native institution, of which Archdeacon Kissling was then the Principal.  He learned rapidly to read and speak Maori, and won all hearts there by his gentle unassuming manners.  My husband was at that time a great invalid, and as our dear friend was living within five minutes’ walk of our house he came in whenever he had a spare half-hour.  He used to bring Archer Butler’s sermons to read with us, and I well remember the pleasant talks that ensued.  The two minds were drawn together by common tasks and habits of thought.  Both had great facility in acquiring languages, and interest in all questions of philology.  Both were also readers of German writers on Church history and of critical interpretation of the New Testament, and I think it was a help to the younger man to be able to discuss these and kindred subjects with an older and more trained mind.  I had heard much of our dear friend before he arrived, and I remember feeling a little disappointed at first, though much drawn to him by his gentle affectionate thoughtfulness and goodness.  He said little about his future work.  He had come obedient to the call and was quietly waiting to do whatever should be set him to do.  As my husband a few months later told Sir John Patteson, there was no sudden flame of enthusiasm which would die down, but a steady fire which would go on burning.  To me he talked much of his home.  He used to walk beside my pony, and tell me about “his dear father”—­how lovingly his voice used to linger over those words!—­of the struggle it had been to leave him, of the dreariness of the day of embarkation.  Years after he could hardly bear to recall it to mind.  I remember his bright look the first day it became certain that we must visit England.  “Why, then you will see my dear father, and tell him all about me!” I knew all his people quite well before, and when I went to visit his little parish of Alfington I seemed to recognise each cottage and its humble inmates, so faithfully had he described his old people and haunts.