grandmother and three little girls. We could take but two of them.
The oldest was thirteen--we knew she would soon be too old to be
helped at all if we did not take her now. The second was under ten,
and the youngest was three and a half. We could not bear to leave
the dead mother's baby, so we took the oldest and the youngest, and
promised the second girl that we would come for her as soon as possible.
They lived in a room nine by twelve feet in size, in which twenty-two
people slept under some old clothes. Do you wonder that she fell on
her knees begging 'Oh, lady, take me, too!'"

"The next day the grandmother was taken ill and had to be sent to
the hospital, and on Tuesday when I went to the patio again the
girl had disappeared.

"Three months later we found her, beaten and bruised from head to
foot, at the door of the Home. She had been in a place where care
and shelter were expected, but when the poor, home-sick girl cried,
they abused her and then put her out on the street, and somehow she
found her way to our Home.

"You would enjoy seeing how quickly the girls in our Home learn
to help each other. Mercedes had been in the Home but ten days when
Francesca came--a bit of a waif who had never worn shoes in all her life,
nor seen a bed before. Of course she knew nothing about undressing and
sleeping between clean, white sheets. She tried to do like the others,
but got into bed with her precious new shoes and stockings on. Mercedes
watched her, and when ready herself, slipped across the room, whispered
to Francesca, took off her shoes and stockings, pushed her--but very
gently--down on her knees for the evening prayer, and then covered
her up in bed as softly and lovingly as a mother." [Footnote: In