extended her benevolence towards others until, by degrees, she collected round her a school which, when we were in the colony, consisted of some two dozen children.
The institution is on the model of an industrial one at home, all the housework and cookery being performed by the pupils, in addition to which they receive such an education as is usually imparted in National Schools in England. None of the inmates of Mrs. Camfield's home have ever run away from it, the secret of her art in retaining them being that she really loves the natives, and treats their children in all respects like those of white persons as to their clothing, diet, and lodging.
I heard that one day a native, who had lost his wife, came to Mrs. Camfield, bringing in his arms his poor motherless little baby, to entreat her to take charge of it; but, as the child seemed unlikely to live, she would not at first receive it, for several children in the school had lately died, and she feared that her institution might gain an ill name with the natives if any more deaths occurred. The man, however, came a second time, begging so urgently, with tears in his eyes, that she would consent to take the baby, that she found it impossible to refuse him any longer, and, under her care, the child lingered on for two or three months, gradually dwindling away until it died.
Mrs. Camfield's chief difficulty is how to settle her girls in life, for when grown up the inevitable question arises. Whom are they to marry? They cannot, after the training that they have received, take a savage husband; and though I believe two of her pupils have married
