Since those days I have collected purses for a dozen or more folk. Men and women whose names are known in every land—but who have fallen on evil days—generally ill-health having been the cause. The Arts are shockingly paid, the mental strain is great. Exponents of great work live on their health capital, their brain-force, and sometimes the chain snaps and the wheels refuse to go round. Then a few hundred pounds, or a pension, or the kindly sympathy of friendship that backs up their faltering strength, comes like a new fuse, inspiring the recipient to take up the threads of work almost as well as before. Yes, I collected between seven and eight hundred pounds for Mrs. Riddell, which I doled out weekly till her death. I paid her servant’s wages, rent, the doctor, and all the necessities of years of illness. Just as my little store was coming to an end her life flickered out. There was enough left for a modest funeral and a stone slab above her grave. That was the first time I undertook a big job of the kind; but not long after I did the same for one of the most famous singers of the day. Then again, the people who do things that will live have proverbially bad business heads. Just as judges die without wills, and Chancellors of the Exchequer leave their own affairs in a muddle, so artists, writers, painters, scientists, reap little reward themselves when weighed against the intense pleasure they give to others. Each little monetary collection or pension has necessitated dozens, almost hundreds, of letters, all of which have come into extremely busy days. I only wish I could have done twice as much, for well I know what a few hundred pounds handed over to me by friends and sympathisers would have been in those early days of widowhood. He who gives quickly gives twice. The generous people are those who have been poor and suffered. The rich so seldom think of anyone but themselves, although writing a cheque costs them no self-sacrifice. Then comes another notable woman; a power in her day. One who, herself strong-minded and a pioneer without recognising it, bitterly denounced other women for so-called strong-mindedness; but, while inflicting the lash on imaginary victims, she poured balm on the wounds of real sufferers. Unhappily deserted in her married life, she yet extolled the virtues of mankind to the skies—a living paradox. Woman has advanced very far since Mrs. Lynn Linton invented the phrase of “the shrieking sisterhood.”