Suddenly there came a change in her ways. She commenced to exhibit some coquetry in dress. But I need not weary you with the details of her decline and fall. Suffice it to say that Mary was missed from home one day and her mother bewailed in her cups that her daughter had gone to the bad. One night I was standing in the shadow of a lamp on Elizabeth street when a woman came along. I knew Mary and stopped her. She exhibited great fear and shame-facedness but I talked to her and finally gained her confidence. She was very anxious to know what the neighbors thought of her. “They are very sorry that you have forgot yourself, Mary,” I answered. “I had to do it,” she said. I tried to reach the meaning of this answer but it was only after a long time that she told me her story. She told in a singularly simple and feeling way HER STORY. “I am awfully sorry Mr. ⸺ for what has happened, but I couldn’t help it. My feelings were stronger than myself. There was something happened one day that changed all my life. You remember the bundles I used to carry. Well, one day, when I was on my way home it started to rain, and before I went two blocks I was soaking. Just then a car overtook me, and I hailed it. I was never on a car before, but I had money that I had just got from my boss, and I thought I could afford it. I struggled into the car with my wet bundle. There were six ladies and three gentlemen in the car. There was plenty of room for me on either side if they had sat closer, but not one of them moved. I stood there like a fool till one of the gentlemen at the far end of the car stood up and asked me to take his seat. When I went to sit down, the lady who had sat close enough to him, drew as far away from me as possible. I never before felt what a dowdy ill-dressed thing I was, but I thought so then. My face was crimson, and I could not look up for the world. Oh, how I wished I had never got on that car. It became unbearable at length, and I made a foolish attempt to get off the car before ringing the bell, and I fell on one of the ladies, and she was very indignant. The gentleman who had given me his seat picked up my bundle and carried it out, while I slunk out after him wishing that the earth would swallow me. He carried my bundle to the sidewalk and asked me which way I was going. I told him, and then when he found I had got off the car long before I was near my home, he laughed at me, and joked about the way the old cats (that’s what he called them) had treated me. That adventure was the TURNING POINT OF MY LIFE.