"Well, I wanted her to understand that I knew plenty would help her, an' I tried to tell her she could begin a different life; but she just opened her eyes, astonished at me. "'You think I'd go to one of those Homes?' she said. 'You're crazy. I can make my livin' easy enough at the theatre, even if I'm not so strong as I was. What have I done more than anybody, after all? Do you think I'd be pointed at an' talked over the way those women are? I'd throw myself in the river first! I've learned enough these years. I go to church sometimes, an' hear men in the pulpit talk about things I know better than they do. I've found out what the good people, the respectable people, are like. I've found out, too, what I might have been, an' that if I live a thousand years I never can be it in this world; an' that's one reason I thought Charley might be willing to marry me. But I shall never say anything more now, for, you see, it isn't goin' to make so very much matter. I had a bad cold in the spring, an' the doctor said then I must be very careful or I should go with consumption. See my arm? They said the other day I'd have to do something to plump up, but I never shall: I'm goin', an' I'm glad of it.' "'Then, if that's got to be, let it be goin' home,' I said. 'Nan, there's everything waitin' for you if you'll only take it. Come down to one of the meetin's an' you'll hear. Won't you?' "'I don't understand it,' she said. 'Everything's in a twist. Years an' years and never hear of God, an' not a soul come near you to tell about Him, an' all at once they say He loves you, and always has. Bah! If He loved, an' people think about it as they pretend, how dare they let there be such places for us to come up in? If God is what they say, He ought to strike the people dead that keep Him to themselves till it is too late for us ever to be helped. There! I won't talk about it. I don't care: all I want is quiet, an' I'll have it soon.' "I saw there was no use then, an' I made up my mind. I'd seen this Mrs. Simpson, for Nan had told me when it all happened, an' I'd gone to the store on purpose; an' I went straight there. 'I've come from Nan,' I said, 'but she doesn't know it. She's a dyin' girl, an' as you helped the father I want you to help the daughter. You're a Christian woman, an' the only soul belongin' to her, an' the time's come to do something.' "'The father was decent,' she said: 'I've nothing to do with street-women.' "'It's through your own son that she grew up to know no better,' I said, for I knew the whole story then, though nobody did when she was down there. 'It's for you to give her your hand now, an' not throw it up to her, any more'n the Lord when he said, "Go, and sin no more." She's in trouble an' sick, and doesn't know what way to turn, an' sore-hearted; an' if you would go to her in the right way you might save a soul, for then she'd believe people meant what they said.'