I could not persuade them, and one by one, before the magistrate, they were fined ten shillings or seven days. The two coarse girls paid their fines and went into the wintry streets, but the ‘ghoul’ and the delicate one had no money, and were placed in a cell. Now, this particular wooden cell had a charm for me that the rest of the cells lacked. A street artist, who had been one of its occupants but a short time before, had whiled away some of his time with the help of his crayons, and had placed on the whitened boards the good old motto _Nil desperandum_. There, in good-sized Old English capitals and startling colours, it smiled upon everyone that entered. When I went to the cell to speak to the sick woman I found underneath the motto two words freshly written--_Deus misereatur_. They were written in a woman’s hand, with pencil, so I knew who had written them. ‘Tell me where your friends live, and I will go and see them,’ I said. ‘It is no use your going, sir. I know I am very ill, and I saw my mother last week, but she won’t have me home again.’ But while I was speaking to her the gaoler came for her; her fine had been paid. There in the gaoler’s office stood the two coarse girls. Cold as it was, they were without their jackets, for they had left them at the nearest pawnshop to raise their friend’s fine. I took them into a refreshment-house, gave them a warm breakfast, and told them that they had done a deed of heavenly charity and made the angels smile. I earnestly renewed my attempt to care for the sickly one, and send them away; but no, they meant to see the last of her. I watched them in the street that cold wintry morning as the snow fell about them, two jacketless girls, one on each side of a dying one, supporting her. I saw them pass into a haunt of vice, and I knew they would be faithful unto death. In less than a month’s time there was a funeral from that house, and though it was not the time of flowers, there was a good display; and in a cab behind the hearse rode the two girls, each holding a wreath, and each newly dressed in mourning. How had they got their new clothing? Five shillings down and half a crown a week to a ‘tallyman.’ How had they paid for the funeral, kept their friend, and paid the doctor? By selling themselves, by hunting drunken men and possibly by robbing them, by the help of other ‘unfortunates,’ and by getting into debt. And I had no word of condemnation as I saw them pass along, not though the girls courted public attention; nay, I had a lump in my throat, a dimness in my eyes, and a thankfulness in my heart. For I had visited at a house of refinement, I had seen a well-dressed, respectable mother, I had pleaded for an erring but dying girl; but respectability said, ‘I must consider her sisters,’ and that was the only reply I got. True, money was offered for the girl’s needs, but as motherly love and sisterly sympathy were denied, I declined it, and left it to the outcasts to tend the dying and bury the dead.