ittle sermon--only put out his hands in response to
hers, and gave her a grip like a freemason's. "Maybe you're right
after all," he said, "and I like your pluck, right or wrong. Only
remember, if you want help, or think better of my offer, just drop a
line to Dr. Alonzo Cricket at the Sanatorium."

When the good-byes were said, Nora stood a moment watching the
Doctor's little figure moving jerkily down the street under its white
umbrella. "I believe he was sent," she said to herself. "I must try to
be to some other puir soul what he has been to me this day."

At her desk at headquarters Nora found a memorandum of four letters to
be written,--three to men in the prison at Sing-Sing. These she
despatched speedily, with the aid of a typewriter; but the fourth she
wrote with her own hand, for it was in answer to one from an orphan
girl who was coming to New York in search of work, and who desired to
be put in the way of finding a safe boarding-place. Nora's heart was
touched by a peculiar sympathy at the thought of the girl's
loneliness, so closely allied to her own, and she wanted her to feel
that it was a friend, and not merely an officer of the Army, who
responded to her appeal, and held out the right hand of fellowship.

It was eleven o'clock when the letters were written, and Nora ran
downstairs to vary her industry by cutting out baby-clothes in the
workroom. Just as she was taking the shears in hand, however, news was
brought in of an accident to a factory-girl who had crushed her foot
in the machinery, and had been brought home to her lodgings in the
house on the next corner.

To this house Nora went, and found the girl alone, and weeping more
from loneliness than suffering. The doctor had left, promising to come
again, and to send an ambulance later in the day, to take the sufferer
to the hospital. Nora knocked gently at the chamber door.

"Come in!" a voice from within answered wearily.

The visitor, standing in the doorway, was impressed by the dreariness
of disorder which reigned inside. Such a room would have been
impossible to Nora herself while hands and knees and a scrubbing-brush
were left to her. In one sweeping glance she took in the hastily
dumped clothing on the floor, the bureau heaped with mussy finery, the
fly-specked window-pane, and soiled bed-spread.

"Who are you?" asked the girl, raising her head from the pillow. "Oh,
one of those Salvation Army women," she added, as she caught sight of