Nor did the work of this true charity stop there: the people were especially visited in their homes on an organized plan, and help afforded them on the report furnished by the visitors. Such visitors, being clergymen and qualified lay people, were fully competent to judge of the cases with which they came in contact. Clothing, blankets, provisions, and wine were freely distributed; half-day jobs were given to unemployed men, outfits were provided for boys and girls starting for new situations, and nothing that money or care could do was left undone. Then distress broke out amidst the tanners, and again Miss Coutts found a way of helping. In a practical manner, she appointed a trusty agent to attend the police-courts of the distressed districts, where applications for relief were received. By this means funds for present wants were disbursed, and also the means of saving their homes to them until better times. Some of you may remember the cholera epidemic in the East-end of London in 1867. Then was Miss Coutts again the active benefactor, and her's was the hand that gave freely, and her's the judicious relief that can never be adequately known or appreciated. Under the superintendence of a qualified medical man, she employed eight trained nurses, two sanitary inspectors, and, under their orders, four men to distribute disinfectants. Let me give you a summary of _one_ week's absolute _gifts_ during the course of this fearful disease: 1,850 tickets for meat, value 1s., 250lb. of arrowroot, 500lb. of rice, 50lb. each of sago and tapioca, 30lb. black currant jelly, 50 gallons of port wine, 25 gallons of brandy, 20 gallons of beef tea, 560 quarts of milk, 100 blankets, 400yds. of flannel, and 400 garments: all this in addition to doctor, nurse, and money! A Shoe Black Brigade, a Boys' Club, and a Relief Committee for discriminate charity may be briefly referred to, as well as the more recent Flower Girls' Brigade; the members of the latter being not only helped and befriended in their present occupation, but also taught the duties of domestic service, or initiated into the art of artificial flower making in the factory specially opened for them. It is satisfactory to hear that this one society has put upwards of 800 girls into a more desirable way of earning their own living. [Illustration: HOLLY LODGE--THE TENNIS LAWN. _From a Water-Colour Drawing by Warne Browne._] The portrait of Charles Dickens gave rise to these reminders of work accomplished in this direction; and now I take up another, that of an aged coloured man, who, the Baroness tells me, was the first convert of one of the Colonial churches, in which she has ever been much interested. She does not, however, tell me what I subsequently learn of these churches, for she is not given to talking of her good deeds.