f her religion and her love.

CHAPTER XIV.

EXPANSION OF THE PRISON ENTERPRISE.--HONORS.

It is an old adage that "nothing succeeds like success." Mrs. Fry and
her prison labors had become famous; not only famous, but the subjects
of talk, both in society and out of it. Kings, queens, statesmen,
philanthropists, ladies of fashion, devotees of charity, authors and
divines were all looking with more or less interest at the experiments
made by the apostles of this new crusade against vice, misery, and
crime. Many of them courted acquaintance with the Quakeress who
hesitated not to plunge into gloomy prison-cells, nor to penetrate
pest-houses decimated with jail fever, in pursuance of her mission. And
while they courted her acquaintance, they fervently wished her "God
speed." Two or three communications, still in existence, prove that
Hannah More and Maria Edgeworth were of the number of good wishers.

In a short note written from Barley Wood, in 1826, Hannah More thus
expressed her appreciation of Mrs. Fry's character:--

Any request of yours, if within my very limited power, cannot fail
to be immediately complied with. In your kind note, I wish you had
mentioned something of your own health and that of your family. I
look back with no small pleasure to the too short visits with which
you once indulged me; a repetition of it would be no little
gratification to me. Whether Divine Providence may grant it or not,
I trust through Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, that we
may hereafter meet in that blessed country where there is neither
sin, sorrow, nor separation.

Many years previous to this, Hannah More had presented Mrs. Fry with a
copy of her _Practical Piety_, writing this inscription on the
fly-leaf:--

TO MRS. FRY. Presented by Hannah More, as a token of veneration of
her heroic zeal, Christian charity, and persevering kindness to the
most forlorn of human beings. They were naked, and she clothed
them, in prison, and she visited them; ignorant, and she taught
them, for _His_ sake, in _His_ name, and by _His_ word, who went
about doing good.

No words can add to the beauty of this inscription.

During one of Maria Edgeworth's London visits, the name and fame of Mrs.
Fry, and Newgate as civilized by her, formed such an attraction that the
lively Irish authoress must needs go to see for herself. In her
picturesque style s