The little girl was lying on the floor-on

a ragged quilt, in a corner. She was a fair child-a little maid of seven. Her eyes were deep blue, wide, and fringed with long, heavy lashes. Her hair was flaxen, abundant, all tangled and curly. Indeed, she was a winsome little thing!

"I'm thinkin' she'll be dyin' soon," said the mother. "Sure, she's wonderful swelled in the legs. We been waitin' for a doctor t' come, an' we kind o' thought you was one."

"How long have you waited ?"

""Twas in April she was took. She've been lyin' there ever since. 'Tis near August, now, I'm thinkin'."

"They was a doctor here two year ago," said the man. "He come by chance," he added, "like you."

"Think they'll be one comin' soon?" the woman asked.

I took the little girl's hand. It was dry and hot. She did not smile-nor was she afraid. Her fingers closed upon the hand

she held. She was a blue-eyed, winsome little maid; but pain had driven all the sweet roguery out of her face.

"Does you think she'll die, zur ?" asked the woman, anxiously.

I did not know.

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Sure, zur," said the man, trying to smile, "'tis wonderful queer, but I sure thought you was a doctor, when I seed you comin' ashore."

"But you isn't?" the woman pursued, still hopefully. "Is you sure you couldn't do nothin'? Is you noa kind of a doctor, at all? We doan't-we doan't-want she t' die!"

In the silence-so long and deep a silence -melancholy shadows crept in from the desolation without.

"I wisht you was a doctor," said the man. "I-wisht-you-was!"

He was crying.

"They need," thought I, "a mission-doctor in these parts.'

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And the next day-in the harbour beyond -I first heard of Grenfell. In that place

they said they would send him to the little maid who lay dying; they assured me, indeed, that he would make haste, when he came that way which would be, perhaps, they thought, in "long about a month." Whether or not the doctor succoured the child I do not know; but I have never forgotten this first impression of his work-the conviction that it was a good work for a man to be about.

Subsequently I learned that Dr. Grenfell was the superintendent of the Newfoundland and Labrador activities of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, an English organization, with a religious and medical work already well-established on the North Sea, and a medical mission then in process of development on the North Atlantic coast. Two years later he discovered himself to be a robust, hearty Saxon, strong, indefatigable, devoted, jolly; a doctor, a parson by times, something of a sportsman when occasion permitted, a master-mariner, a magistrate, the director of certain commer

cial enterprises designed to "help the folk help themselves"-the prophet and champion, indeed, of a people: and a man very much in love with life.

II

A ROUND of BLEAK COASTS

T

HE coast of Labrador, which, in number of miles, forms the larger

half of the doctor's round, is for

bidding, indeed—naked, rugged, desolate, lying sombre in a mist. It is of weatherworn gray rock, broken at intervals by long ribs of black. In part it is low and ragged, slowly rising, by way of bare slopes and starved forest, to broken mountain ranges, which lie blue and bold in the inland waste. Elsewhere it rears from the edge of the sea in stupendous cliffs and lofty, rugged hills. There is no inviting stretch of shore the length of it—no sandy beach, no line of shingle, no grassy bank; the sea washes a thousand miles of jagged rock. Were it not for the harbours-innumerable and snugly sheltered from the winds and ground swell