My friend arrived before I had finished feeding the children, and to him the little mother poured forth her tale. She, with three children, had arrived some days before, to meet the husband who had preceded her and had prepared the home for them. One _bambina_ was ill when they reached port, and it was taken from her, why she could not explain. She was allowed to land with the other two and join her husband, and the following day, in answer to their frantic inquiries, they learned that the child had been taken to a hospital and had died there. Then her husband was arrested, and she, unacquainted with a single human being in the city, found herself alone with two starving children, too frightened to open the door or to venture upon the street. She thought her husband was imprisoned somewhere nearby. My friend and I went together to the Ludlow Street jail, and here a curious thing occurred. We merely inquired for the prisoner; we asked no questions. His cell door was opened and he was released. Later I learned that he had been arrested because of failure to make a satisfactory payment on a watch he was buying on the installment plan. There must have been gross irregularity in the transaction, judging by the willingness to release him and the fact that his creditor failed to appear against him. It was hinted, at the time, that there was collusion between the installment plan dealers and the prison officials. A pleasanter story is that of the B⸺ family. One evening two neighborhood women, shawls over their heads, called to ask if I would contribute to a fund they were raising to furnish quarters for a family just arrived from Ellis Island. When I expressed wonder that they should have been permitted to land in a penniless condition the women shrugged their shoulders in characteristic fashion and said, “Well, they’re here, and we must do something.” Not wishing to refuse, or to participate blindly, I asked for the whereabouts of the man of the family. I found him in a basement, a very dignified, gray-haired cobbler, between 40 and 45 years of age. When I asked how it happened that the first step of his family in America should be to claim help in this way he explained the complications in which they had been involved. He had preceded his family to make a home for them, and after some years had sent money for steamer tickets for them. When they arrived at the frontier, owing to some technicality, they were sent back. He had sent more money to defray the additional expenses; then himself had been compelled to undergo an operation for appendicitis, which took all he had hoarded to furnish the home. He was just out of the hospital when wife and children arrived. [Illustration]