great
desire of her heart. The girls were to wear on Sundays and other dress
occasions white Peter Thompson suits, big bows of ribbon in their hair
and shining, well-fitted shoes.

Soon _she_ entered the room. One could hardly take her eyes from that
sweet, sympathetic, calm, face. A glance told one she might trust her
with her soul's secrets without fear and might tell her _anything_ and
she would understand. After her came the girls and quietly, with an
attractive self-consciousness because of their new glory raiment, they
took their seats. Who could fail to forgive them if they fingered
lovingly the great soft silk Peter Thompson ties and patted the bows on
their hair. Some of them seemed scarcely more than children though some
were in their later teens. No one of the group present that afternoon
will ever forget how they sang, nor how they listened with eager
responsive faces. No one can tell what new hopes and ambitions were born
as they sat in their new finery, some of them for the first time in
their lives becomingly dressed.

After the service they filed out, put on their long checked aprons and
got supper. We saw the beds in the wards where all the new comers must
sleep, then the smaller rooms with six and four beds, the still smaller
with two and the honor rooms which a girl might occupy alone and might
arrange as she chose. There were flowers in all the single rooms and
pictures on the walls.

It almost seemed as we walked along the edge of the drive over the walk
the girls had laid, that we were leaving a boarding school where girls
were being taught household economics and the arts and crafts.

The woman who had wrought the miracle which had been wrought in that
school stood at the end of the drive as we left and in response to the
exclamation, "It seems impossible that these girls could ever have been
guilty of the deeds the records show!" she answered, "These girls are
not vicious. It is after all a question of leadership and they followed
the wrong leaders." She paused a moment, looked back at the buildings,
and then said softly, "God pity the girl who is easily led." And in our
hearts we echoed her prayer.

V

THE GIRL WHO IS MISUNDERSTOOD

Every girl in the world I suppose has sometime in her life felt that she
was misunderstood, that every one looked at her through the wrong
glasses, that no one saw her good qualities or appreciated her abilities
and that all with whom she had to do i