Warned not to leave her wraps about, one of my helpers put her muff and stole on the staircase. An hour later she only rescued them in the nick of time from a crate where a kindly man was packing them up, thinking they “would be so comfortable for the poor people in Sicily.” Many of these crates stood four feet from the ground. It was therefore impossible, even with the aid of friendly walking-sticks, to pack the bottom, consequently a kitchen chair was fetched, and by its aid various girls got inside and gradually packed the clothing and themselves upwards. My rooms on the ground floor were full of parcels, letters, cheques, postal orders, keys waiting to be returned with portmanteaux, labels likewise to be affixed to returned empties, bills of lading, telegrams, cards, accounts for clothing, etc. Personally, I never sat down for one minute that somebody did not come to ask for a shilling, or sixpence, or half-crown, to pay for some package delivered unpaid at the door. To complicate matters, reporters and photographers seemed to arrive from everywhere. They snapshotted us as we worked, they gleaned bits of information from any and every one, and one of them insisted on penetrating my private den, where he found me busily writing. A friend, hearing a crash and seeing a mysterious light, thought there was a sudden earthquake in York Terrace. She rushed to the hall to ask what had happened. “Oh, it is nothing, only Mrs. Tweedie being snapshotted.” And oh—what a photograph it was! But it was reproduced in France, Germany, Italy, and Sicily. Some weeks afterwards I received the following letter from the Italian Government through Sir Rennell Rodd, our Ambassador in Rome: “MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, “_27th January, 1909_. “SIR, “By your note of 14th inst. your Excellency informed me that the well-known authoress, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, had in the short time of three days collected twenty thousand pieces of clothing, which in 167 packages had been sent to Naples, Messina, and Catania, to succour the sufferers in the recent disaster. “I shall be grateful if your Excellency will, in the name of the Royal Government and myself, express to Mrs. Alec Tweedie the sense of profound gratitude for the zeal and alacrity which she showed in coming to the help of so many sufferers. “I have, etc., “(Signed) TITTONI. “H.E. Sir R. Rodd, “British Ambassador, Rome.” Most of the packages were distributed by my personal friends to the real sufferers in Sicily fourteen days after the earthquake. Yes, it _was_ an experience. An extraordinary experience even in a life not unknown to strange sights and circumstances, but it was not what one would willingly undertake again. The strain of organising such a performance in a few hours’ time was terrific.