‘_Nov. 8._--If I were not a Mission Miss Sahiba, who should never complain, I might give a groan or a grumble to the mice and rats. They get into my almira, and what is even worse, into my harmonium. I had a tin plate made for the pedal part, expressly to keep creatures out; but they managed to pass it. I have now had a second large one made, and hope that it may prove more effectual. The creatures have bitten almost all the red Persian away; to-day I found lumps of wadding in my harmonium. “How could they have come there?” I asked of my sharp kahar, V. I suspected the rats, but did not know where they could have got the wadding from,--when V. suggested the beautiful padded cover of my harmonium. Sure enough, the rogues had bitten holes in that, and pulled out wadding to stuff into my harmonium, doubtless to make a comfortable nest for a family of young mice or rats. I tried a Batala trap; it was of no use: I have bought an Amritsar one, and Mera Bhatija has bought another; but the rats, I fear, will not be much thinned in numbers. We try to get a weasel, but have not succeeded yet. But things might have been much worse. The rats never try to eat _us_!’