Many similar cases helped Bessie to understand those on whose behalf she laboured; but they never closed her heart to the appeal of a blind person who was in need. The area of her work was enlarged, as well as that of the aid which enabled her to carry it on. Not all those who clamoured for employment really wanted it. They meant _alms_ when they said _wages_, and drew back in disgust from the offer to teach them a trade and make them self-supporting. They were often even more degraded and vicious than poor. To see and know this, and yet not to lose heart, to "hold fast to that which is good" when evil abounds, is a difficult task. Bessie did not shrink from it, and she did not misunderstand her work. She was merciful and compassionate to those who had fallen, felt for them in the solitude, the poverty, the despair that had driven them to evil courses, would relieve them in actual want, but she soon learnt that nothing could be done with or for them in the workroom. They might be reached, and indeed must be reached by other agencies, but the _teacher_ could do nothing. The practical outcome of this experience was extreme care in selecting the persons to be taught and employed, and a very tender compassion in reference even to the hopeless and abandoned. Their lonely, sad condition was never overlooked. Bessie was very cautious in the selection of members of the Committee who would henceforth govern the Institution, and a letter written about this time on her Foucault frame to an old Oxford friend will be read with interest. She not only wrote many of her own letters at this time, but addressed her own envelopes, and very puzzling the postman must have sometimes found them. PALACE, CHICHESTER, _16th January 1857_.