_Saturday, Jan. 20._—Be sure and find us when you take your pleasure trip to Washington, and we will show you better than we can write, the need of missionary work among its 60,000 colored people. This is one of our winter’s worst days. It rains fast, and the streets are full of snow and water. Breakfast over, I hastened to market for meat to make broth for the sick, and to the grocery for bread. While picking my way over the slippery pavements, a grandmother calls after me with a request that must be heeded. On entering my room in the Mission, a barrel from Brooklyn awaits unpacking. God bless the dear friends of the North who so nobly respond to my appeal for help. They never will know how much good the old clothes do. Before I’m half through, knock number one brings old Auntie Bennett, afflicted with a disease so offensive that she cannot attend our gatherings. When leaving with her bundle of warm garments, in steps Auntie Harris, always so trustful in the Lord, and yet she says, “I sat all yesterday without any fire”; her husband and crippled son unable to provide. Thankful for a little relief, she goes out to carry a big bundle to another poor creature, who, with her old man, have scarcely a crust, and nothing but a leaky shanty for shelter. Caller No. 3 is a young woman, bringing a note from the police station and a certificate from her doctor, that tells of serious sickness, one two-year-old child, and nothing wherewith to help herself. I send her to see our Day Nursery, and tell her to bring her baby on Monday, and I will see what more can be done. Her dull, wan face brightens as she leaves. Tom C. comes next—my boy, who draws our Temperance blackboard illustrations, paints our signs, puts up Christmas decorations, &c. I’ve just received his fit in a suit; so, with a patch to mend the sleeves, and more work under his arm, he goes. Pinkie T. has framed some mottoes, and I ask her to hang them in the school room, paying her with a pair of nice boots. Annie C., our missionary girl from Howard U., comes to assist, and, as a member of the Doing-Good Society of the school, this P.M. brings a report from sick Mr. Green. After preparations for the afternoon, and a peep into the nursery, where the floors are being scrubbed and the children are taking their bath (for, though the Associated Charities have adopted this, my pet project of last year, and have appointed a committee of ladies, I have the daily supervision). I leave for lunch at 12½. The girl’s industrial school opens at 1½; 61 out of 130 scholars are present. We are divided into 15 classes, each with a teacher, if enough ladies are present. I appoint a girl to attend to callers. We open with singing, and sew until 3 o’clock. Some are making bags for their work, some patch-work, some, fancy-work, while others are mending or making garments and learning to cut them. We intersperse sewing-songs. They help the pupils to remember instructions.