“Why, of course!” replied Heloise. “Aren't we stupid? They are ministers. And I don't think it matters what particular place they happen to be in when they say the words.”
Hindmann is inclined to think that we had best go down after all to the Tientsin Consulate and be married there, either by a missionary or by a minister of one of the Settlements. “There's several thousand white folks there,” said he. “Pretty sure to be some preachers among 'em. Then, you see, the Consul-General will give you each a certificate, and besides he'll have the marriage put on record at the State Department at Washington. That way, it 'll hold all right, I guess.”
Heloise and I covertly exchanged glances. We know what is in our hearts Certificates!...
On the Steamer, “Hsing Mien,”, Yangtze River. May 1st.
I FOUND this volume of my journal to-day at the bottom of my trunk. I do not understand why I wrote it. My life is so astonishingly different now. Yet for many years I rarely missed a day. In the earlier volumes—left in my tin trunk, at Peking, with my other books and papers—each little step of the laborious, day-by-day work that has so slowly brought me to my present mastery of my subject, is carefully noted down. I rarely noted mere moods, conversations, personal interests, until this journey to the East. I am amazed, in turning the leaves of this latest and (I think) last volume, to observe that it is almost wholly personal. But I suppose this is natural, considering the extraordinarily personal nature of the events in which I have played so curious and, in the outcome, so wonderful a part.
I don't think I shall make any effort to keep it up. It was the companion of my solitary years. There is no longer the inclination—or even the time. I have a better companion. Why, I hardly realized, until this afternoon, that it has been all but forgotten for ten days. Since my eighteenth birthday, when I began my series of journals in earnest, I have never before neglected this work for a greater space than three days. Excepting, of course, when I was operated upon, four years ago.
As regards my working notes, Heloise insists on keeping those herself. She has discarded the journal method as cumbersome and difficult to index. She has ordered a series of loose-leaf blank books from Kelly and Walsh, at Shanghai. Meantime she is keeping all my memoranda on cards.
It is rather a surprise to me that I can permit her to rearrange my habits of work in this fashion. But I do permit it. I am even forced to admit that she is already an invaluable assistant.