Many of the girls had tried to regain the right path, and failed because of their friendlessness. Some of them had homes, but the doors were closed against them. Look at this frail, pale girl of eighteen. There is a look in the sad brown eyes raised to yours as you pass her at her work which goes straight to your heart. She is a girl who, penitent and broken-hearted, wrote to her father, imploring him to let her return to her home. Here is the letter she received in reply to her despairing appeal:-- _"Bessie,--We are surprised to think that you should ever have the cheek to write to us again and to think we should give you another chance. I think you have had a good chance, and we do not intend to give you any more--in fact, if you dare to come and see us we will shut the door in your face, for you are a disgrace to the family..., You said that you wanted to go your own way; now you can go your own way.... You need not take the trouble ever to write to us again, for if you do it will be sent hack unopened; at the same time you know if ever I should meet you it won't be good for you."_ But all the inmates are not of the ordinary class. With regard to some of them there is a mystery that is never penetrated. That they are of superior birth and education they cannot conceal, but for the rest they are silent. Not long since in this Home, at the hour when the Ladies' Committee was sitting, a visitor came who particularly wished to see them. Shown in, she handed to the Committee a bank-note for £20, and to the surprise of every one explained that it was a thank-offering. A few years previously this charming and beautifully dressed lady had been herself an inmate of the Institution. She told her story frankly. In a moment of temptation she had quitted her home, leaving no word behind which would enable her parents to trace her. Her wilful course led her down step by step until she found herself an outcast from decent society, and she was then ashamed to let her friends know of her whereabouts. One night she came to the Refuge and applied for admission. She was taken in, and after eighteen months' training she was placed in domestic service. Shortly afterwards, in quite a remarkable way, her father discovered her and took her home. Her father was a man of wealth, holding a high position in Society. When the "rescued" woman left the institution she was seen to enter a carriage, which had been waiting a few doors lower down. The coachman and footman were in aristocratic liveries, and had powdered hair. What writer of fiction would have placed in a refuge for fallen women a girl who, while she was training there for domestic service, had a father whose men-servants wore powdered hair? But behind the brick walls that strange romance was being worked out, and the mystery of the girl's identity remains unsolved to this day.