mean that you look on me as a woman?'

"'How else?' I answered; while she retreated to her bed, all the rest
standing in the attitudes into which passion had thrown them.

"'Arrange your beds,' I said; 'and in fifteen minutes let me return, and
find every thing right.' When I returned, all was as I had desired; every
woman standing at her bedside. The short woman was missing; but, bending
on each a friendly glance, I passed through the ward, which never gave me
any more trouble.

"When, late at night, I entered my room, it was fragrant with violets. A
green wreath surrounded an old Bible, and a little bouquet rested upon
it. I did not pause to speculate over this sentimentality, but threw
myself weary upon the bed; when a light tap at the door startled me. The
short woman entered; and humbling herself on the floor, since she would
not sit in my presence entreated to be heard.

"'You called me a woman,' she said, 'and you pity us. Others call us by
the name the world gives us. You would help us, if help were possible. All
the girls love you, and are ashamed before you; and therefore _I_ hate
you--no: I will not hate you any longer. There was a time when I might
have been saved,--I and Joanna and Margaret and Louise. We were not bad.
Listen to me. If _you_ say there is any hope, I will yet be an honest
woman.'

"She had had respectable parents; and, when twenty years old, was deserted
by her lover, who left her three months pregnant. Otherwise kind, her
family perpetually reproached her with her disgrace, and threatened to
send her away. At last, she fled to Berlin; keeping herself from utter