t day she again invited me into her office and
came directly to the purpose of the interview.

"Miss Shaw," she said, "I have been talking to a friend of mine about
you, and she would like to make a bargain with you. She thinks you are
working too hard. She will pay you three dollars and a half a week
for the rest of this school year if you will promise to give up your
preaching. She wants you to rest, study, and take care of your health."

I asked the name of my unknown friend, but Mrs. Barrett said that was to
remain a secret. She had been given a check for seventy-eight dollars,
and from this, she explained, my allowance would be paid in weekly
instalments. I took the money very gratefully, and a few years later I
returned the amount to the Missionary Society; but I never learned the
identity of my benefactor. Her three dollars and a half a week, added to
the weekly two dollars I was allowed for room rent, at once solved the
problem of living; and now that meal-hours had a meaning in my life, my
health improved and my horizon brightened. I spent most of my evenings
in study, and my Sundays in the churches of Phillips Brooks and James
Freeman Clark, my favorite ministers. Also, I joined the university's
praying-band of students, and took part in the missionary-work among the
women of the streets. I had never forgotten my early friend in Lawrence,
the beautiful "mysterious lady" who had loved me as a child, and, in
memory of her, I set earnestly about the effort to help unfortunates of
her class. I went into the homes of these women, followed them to the
streets and the dance-halls, talked to them, prayed with them, and
made friends among them. Some of them I was able to help, but many were
beyond help; and I soon learned that the effective work in that field is
the work which is done for women before, not after, they have fallen.

During my vacation in the summer of 1876 I went to Cape Cod and earned
my expenses by substituting in local pulpits. Here, at East Dennis, I
formed the friendship which brought me at once the greatest happiness
and the deepest sorrow of that period of my life. My new friend was
a widow whose name was Persis Addy, and she was also the daughter of
Captain Prince Crowell, then the most prominent man in the Cape Cod
community--a bank president, a railroad director, and a citizen of
wealth, as wealth was rated in those days. When I returned to the
theological school in the autumn Mrs. Addy came