After addressing a meeting at Slateford near Edinburgh she was on the way to the station when a woman who had been in the audience took Janie and kissed her and pressed some money into her hand. Next day the minister received a letter inscribed:
"For the lady who gave Janie the money and the kiss on the way to the station.-M. M. Slessor."
Enclosed was a photograph of Janie and a letter in which she wrote:
MY DEAR FRIEND—For such I must call you. Such a true womanly Christian spirit as you showed yesterday is one of the fruits of our holy Christianity—I thank you for loving and kissing the child—God bless you, my dear sister. I may yet see you in the flesh. I will if I go back to Slateford. But I may be sure of meeting you in the Father's house when the shadows flee away and the everlasting glory has dawned.
The recipient kept the photograph and letter and still treasures them as mementoes of one of whom she never ceased to think and for whom she always prayed. It was in such ways that she knit hearts to her.
She made many friends in the manses and in the homes of the members of the Church, and greatly increased the interest in her work in Calabar, with the result that after she returned a larger stream of correspondence and Mission boxes began to flow to Okoyong.
XVIII. LOVE OF LOVER
Aware of her singleness of mind and aim in the service of Christ, and her whole-hearted devotion to the interests of the people of Okoyong, it came as a surprise to her friends to learn that she was engaged to be married. The hidden romance was disclosed at a meeting of the Mission Board in September.
The suitor for her hand was Mr. Charles W. Morrison, one of the teachers on the Mission staff, a young man from Kirkintilloch, Scotland, then in his twenty-fifth year. His career at home had been a successful one; he had been an active Christian worker, and when he applied to the Board for an appointment in Calabar he was accepted at once and sent out to Duke Town. He was a man of fine feeling, with a distinct literary gift. On the few occasions that he had seen Mary he was attracted by the brilliant, unconventional little woman, and when she was ill was very attentive and kind to her. Before she left on furlough they had become engaged on the understanding that he would come and live at Okoyong.
She made it clear to the Board that she had pledged her word to her people not to leave them, and that she would not, even for her personal happiness, break her promise, Mr. Morrison, she believed, would make a very good missionary, and they would be able to relieve each other, as she would remain at Okoyong when he was at home. The Board took time to consider the proposal, and meanwhile Mary received the congratulations of her friends. Her replies indicate that there was no uncertainty in her own mind on the subject: