The Filipinos had to have a little coaxing before they began to avail themselves very freely of our general invitation. But by asking many of them personally and persistently to “be sure and come Wednesday” we prevailed on a good number to believe they were really wanted; and after a little while there began to be as many brown faces as white among our guests.

Speaking of school teachers reminds me that it was just about this time that our minds were relieved of all anxiety with regard to Bob’s and Helen’s education. My husband had wanted to send our ten-year-old son back across the Pacific and the United States, all by himself, to his Uncle Horace’s school in Connecticut, and I had opposed the idea with all my might without being able to offer a satisfactory substitute plan. But now a school for American children was opened and they were as well taught as they would have been at home. Moreover, Bob and Helen found a large number of congenial companions, and I don’t think I ever saw a happier set of boys and girls. They lived out of doors and did everything that children usually do, but their most conspicuous performance was on the Luneta in the evenings, where they would race around the drive on their little ponies, six abreast, or play games all over the grass plots which were then, and always have been, maintained chiefly for the benefit of children, both brown and white.