Some one is pulling my sleeve. I turn my head to find Rita leaning
against me and quietly whispering, "Mother, don't cry; I'll be good.
Don't cry."

From that time on the change in Rita was unmistakable, and although she
had many hard battles to fight, to lose, and to win, she came out
gloriously victorious.

"Who was Rita?" I'll tell you.

Rita was a roguish, fun-loving, childish little woman, twenty-one years
old, who neither acted nor looked her age. Her mother had been a
waitress in one of the dives of a locality called "The Barbary Coast,"
San Francisco, where are many low, vile haunts of vice. Her father, she
never knew. She was very dark, apparently part Spanish, quite
attractive, and rather pretty.

Some time prior to my advent she was brought to the home in a
semi-intoxicated condition by one of the Lord's consecrated
missionaries. Full of mischief and depravity, she was, from the first,
a trouble-maker. From her earliest recollection, her companions had all
been of the type with whom her mother associated; therefore it would
take time, great and loving patience, and a constant waiting on the
Master for her to harmonize perfectly with new environments.

This poor girl had seen no other life, up to within a few weeks of my
meeting her, than a life replete with vice from one day's ending to
another. Much of the time she had participated. But be it recorded to
the credit of her mother that, to the extent of her knowledge, she had