Other neighbors, and of a very different character, had Margaret in her new surroundings. The prisons at Blackwell's Island were on the opposite side of the river, at a distance easily reached by boat. Sing Sing prison was not far off; and Margaret accepted the invitation to pass a Sunday within its walls. She had consorted hitherto with the _élite_ of her sex, the women attracted to her having invariably been of a superior type. She now made acquaintance with the outcasts in whom the elements of womanhood are scarcely recognized. For both she had one gospel, that of high hope and divine love. She seems to have found herself as much at home in the office of encouraging the fallen, as she had been when it was her duty to arouse the best spirit in women sheltered from the knowledge and experience of evil by every favoring circumstance. This was in the days in which Judge Edmonds had taken great interest in the affairs of the prison. Mrs. Farnum, a woman of uncommon character and ability, had charge of the female prisoners, who already showed the results of her intelligent and kindly treatment. On the occasion of her first visit, Margaret spoke with only a few of the women, and says that "the interview was very pleasant. These women were all from the lowest haunts of vice, yet nothing could have been more decorous than their conduct, while it was also frank. _All passed, indeed, much as in one of my Boston classes._" This last phrase may somewhat startle us; but it should only assure us that Margaret had found, in confronting two circles so widely dissimilar, the happy words which could bring high and low into harmony with the true divine. Margaret's second visit to the prison was on the Christmas soon following. She was invited to address the women in their chapel, and has herself preserved some record of her discourse, which was extemporaneous. Seated at the desk, no longer with the critical air which repelled the timid, but deeply penetrated by the pathos of the occasion, she began with the words, "To me the pleasant office has been given of wishing you a happy Christmas." And the sad assembly smiled, murmuring its thanks. What a Christ-like power was that which brought this sun-gleam of a smile into that dark tragedy of offence and punishment! Some passages of this address must be given here, to show the attitude in which this truly noble woman confronted the most degraded of her sex. After alluding to the common opinion that "women once lost are far worse than abandoned men, and cannot be restored," she said:--