vicious; I had spent all my time in lamenting their woes and railing
against those that caused them; and when for the first time I saw a
possibility of doing something for some of them, these very men shut
their doors the very moment they caught sight of me in the distance, and
their children (those pretty children that I love so much!) would hide
themselves in ditches so as to escape the fever which, it was said, I
could give with a glance. However, as Edmee's friendship for me was
well known, they did not dare to repulse me openly, and I succeeded in
getting the information we wanted. Whenever I told her of any distress
she at once supplied a remedy. One house was full of cracks; and while
the daughter was wearing an apron of cotton-cloth at four francs an ell,
the rain was falling on the grandmother's bed and the little children's
cradles. The roof and walls were repaired; we supplied the materials and
paid the workmen; but no more money for gaudy aprons. In another case,
an old woman had been reduced to beggary because she had listened too
well to her heart, and given all she had to her children, who had turned
her out of doors, or made her life so unbearable that she preferred to
be a tramp. We took up the old woman's cause, and threatened that we
would bring the matter before the courts at our own expense. Thus
we obtained for her a pension, to which we added when it was not
sufficient. We induced several old persons who were in a similar
position to combine and live together under the same roof. We chose one
as head, and gave him a little capital, and as he was an industrious and
methodical man, he turned it to such profit that his children came
and made their peace with him, and asked to be allowed to help in his
establishment.

"We did many other things besides; I need not give you details, as you
will see them yourself. I say 'we,' because, though I did not wish to
be concerned in anything beyond what I had already done, I was gradually