At the end of nearly a week of toil, I had apparently made little impression. One night as I sat in our room, too tired to go to the dining-room, Lucy came in, took off my shoes and stockings, cried over the swollen, blistered condition of my feet, bathed them, made me retire, and brought to the bedside a tempting meal. The next day, after making a few calls and receiving some small sums by way of encouragement, I felt impressed to return to our room and then go to a handsome home directly across the street from the boarding-house. Soon I was ringing the bell. A lady greeted me with a lovely smile, bade me enter, and encouraged me in making known my errand. Calling her husband, she asked me to repeat my story. When I took my departure, after receiving overwhelming kindness and a cordial invitation to return when convenient, I held in my hand my first gold piece for the fund. The donors were Mr. and Mrs. Chas. E. Moore, who have been my warm, interested, personal friends from that time to this. They did all in their power to aid me, particularly through introductions to people of means in their home town. Soon I was led to make myself known to the pastors of the various churches, one of whom agreed to give me an opportunity of addressing an audience from his pulpit. His name was Thurston, and I shortly learned that he was a nephew of the people with whom I had traveled in gospel-wagon work. The following notice in the Santa Clara News of July 7, 1903, heralded the prospective meeting: FOR A RESCUE HOME Mrs. Florence Roberts, who is known in San Francisco as the Rescue Missionary and Singing Evangelist, will address the public in the Baptist church next Sunday on the subject of the establishment of a non-sectarian home for women near San Francisco. She comes highly endorsed by prominent citizens and Christian societies. There are, she states, thirty-five thousand women on this coast to be reached, and she is endeavoring to procure funds for a home to which they can come for reformation. A free-will offering will be taken at the conclusion of the address. Prior to this meeting I learned of a little rescue home in San Jose, the adjacent city, and one afternoon Lucy and I visited it. We went without previous announcement, for I wanted to satisfy myself as to its merits. It was a pretty old-fashioned cottage of about eight rooms, located at 637 East St. John Street. There were but two girls--one a mother, the other a prospective one--and, sad to relate, a most inefficient matron. I quickly took in the situation, and, for the sake of the inmates, privately decided to accept erelong her invitation to sojourn temporarily under that roof. After I had thoroughly canvassed Santa Clara, I, acting upon divine directions, took Lucy and went to the San Jose rescue home.