!

And I was there sometimes to see, and it was good for me. So Mrs. Holmes
and myself make frequent visits to the rest home, and every time we
visit it we become more and more convinced that not only is it a "Palace
Beautiful," but that it is also a joy to the slave women who have the
good fortune to spend a holiday (all too short) in it.

Gloom cannot enter "Singholm" or, if it does enter, it promptly and
absolutely disappears. Ill-temper cannot live there, the very flowers
smile it away. The atmosphere itself acts like "laughing gas." So the
house fairly rings with merry laughter from elderly staid women equally
as from the younger ones, whose contact with serious and saddening life
has not been so paralysing to joyous emotions.

It did us good to hear such jolly laughter from throats and organs that,
but for Singholm, must have rusted and decayed.

One of our trustees was with us, it being his first visit to the home.
I know that he was surprised at the size, the beauty, the comfort and
refinement of the whole place. The garden filled him with delight,
the skill of the architect in planning the building, together with the
style, gave him increased pleasure.

The great drawing-room and the equally large dining-room rather
astonished him. The little bedrooms he declared perfect. But what
astonished him most of all was the unaffected happiness of the women;
for this I do not think he was prepared. Well, as I have said,
gloom cannot live in Singholm, and this I have found out by personal
experience, for if I am quite cross and grumpy in London, I cannot
resist the exhilaration that prevails at Singholm among London's
underworld women.

I think I may say that our trustee was surprised at something else! But
then he is a bachelor, and so of course does not understand the infinite
resources of femininity.

"How nice they look," he said. "How well they dress"; and, once again,
"How clean and tidy they are; how well their colours blend!"

Thank God for this! we hold no truce with dirt at Singholm; we bid
dowdyism begone! avaunt! I will tell you a secret! Singholm demands
respect for itself and self-respect for its inmates.

Our trustee's testimony is true; the women belonging to our association
do look nice; when they are at Walton they rise to the occasion as if
they were to the manner born.

When, with their cheap white or blue blouses, they sit under the palms
in our drawing-room, all, even the oldest and poor