In the autumn of 1856, Marie was addressing a physiological institute in Boston. Mrs. Dall says: 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. Mrs. Dall then quotes from the address: Soon after I entered the hospital [said Marie], the nurses called me to a ward where sixteen of the most forlorn objects had begun to fight with each other. The inspector and the young physician had been called to them, but dared not enter the _mêlée_. When I arrived, pillows, chairs, footstools and vessels had deserted their usual places; and one stout little woman, with rolling eyes and tangled hair, had 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. She retreated to her bed while all the rest stood in the attitudes into which passion had thrown them. “Arrange your beds,” I said; “and in fifteen minutes, let me return and find everything 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 on 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_ hated 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.”