any acquaintance. How about “slumming” which Mr. Punch declared recently was so fashionable? There never was very much of it; there is less now, and that doesn’t count. It never did the least good, nor was it likely it should. The great wrong done to the poor by the complete alienation of the rich cannot be condoned by spasmodic visits to their wretched homes by ladies and gentlemen, who go to see them as they go to the Zoo; by their occasional presence at the opening of a bazaar for a poor church; nor by the exhibition of their well-appointed equipages to the admiring gaze of the denizens of Tourniquet’s Rents. This wrong cannot be remedied by gifts of money, nor by loans of pictures and _objets d’art_. It happened that just as Sister Agnes left St. Bernard’s, a number of ladies of wealth and position had formed themselves into a community, without any distinctly religious badge or dogmas, for the purpose of residing together in an East London district. They took a large, old-fashioned house in the Commercial Road, called in a skilful architect and a builder, had it put in thorough repair and properly adapted to the purposes of colonization by the well-to-do. They were women of ample leisure, intelligence, and business capacity, and were impressed by the idea that if one would help the poor and ignorant, it could only be done effectually by teaching them how to help themselves. They did not propose to inculcate the religious opinions of any particular section of the Christian Church; they wore no distinctive dress, had no politics in particular, and were only actuated by a desire to see for themselves what was the real life and what were the real needs of the working people with whom they went to reside. They knew that in a great measure the deplorable unloveliness of East London was due to the fact that it was deserted by people of wealth and capacity for helping their neighbours, and that the best way of doing good in the locality was work and residence there. “The problem was how to make the working people realize their spiritual and social solidarity with the rest of the capital and the kingdom; how to revive their sense of citizenship, with its privileges which they have lost, and its responsibilities which they have forgotten. Among these privileges should be education, rational amusement, and social intercourse, best supplied by local clubs, with their various guilds, classes, and societies. Among the duties, on the other hand, which require to be revived, thrift and prudence stand pre-eminent; and thrift and prudence can only be taught by those who will associate with the people and thus induce them to face the elementary laws of economy. This is especially the case with regard to that population question to which all the other problems are subordinate. The levity with which lads and girls enter upon matrimony without any adequate provision (a levity which would be criminal if it were not so unconscious), can only