When neither has any thing to hide from the other, no social duty will seem too difficult to be undertaken; and, when the interest of each sex is to secure the purity of the other, neither religion nor humanity need despair of the result. It was while fully absorbed in thoughts and purposes like these, that, in the autumn of 1856, I first saw Marie Zakrzewska.[1] During a short visit to Boston (for she was then resident in New York), a friend brought her before a physiological institute, and she addressed its members. She spoke to them of her experience in the hospital at Berlin, and showed that the most sinning, suffering woman never passed beyond the reach of a woman's sympathy and help. She had not, at that time, thoroughly mastered the English language; though it was quite evident that she was fluent, even to eloquence, in German. Now and then, a word failed her; and, with a sort of indignant contempt at the emergency, she forced unaccustomed words to do her service, with an adroitness and determination that I never saw equalled. I got from it a new revelation of the power of the English language. She illustrated her noble and nervous thoughts with incidents from her own experience one of which was told in a manner which impressed it for ever on my consciousness. "Soon after I entered the hospital," said Marie, "the nurse called me to a ward where sixteen of the most forlorn objects had begun to fight with each other. The inspector and the young physicians had been called to them, but dared not enter the _mêlée_. When I arrived, pillows, chairs, foot-stools and vessels had deserted their usual places; and one stout little woman, with rolling eyes and tangled hair, lifted a vessel of slops, which she threatened to throw all over me, as she exclaimed, 'Don't dare to come here, you green young thing!' "I went quietly towards her, saying gently, 'Be ashamed, my dear woman, of your fury.' "Her hands dropped. Seizing me by the shoulder she exclaimed, 'You don't 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.