d, and wipes all tears away. Hear me say it to thee for a
prayer," and she bent low and said it soft and clear into the deadening
ear, "He wipes all tears away--He wipes all tears away."

The great strength she had used in the old days to conquer and subdue, to
win her will and to defend her way, seemed now a power but to protect the
suffering and uphold the weak, and this she did, not alone in hovels but
in the brilliant court and world of fashion, for there she found
suffering and weakness also, all the more bitter and sorrowful since it
dared not cry aloud. The grandeur of her beauty, the elevation of her
rank, the splendour of her wealth would have made her a protector of
great strength, but that which upheld all those who turned to her was
that which dwelt within the high soul of her, the courage and power of
love for all things human which bore upon itself, as if upon an eagle's
outspread wings, the woes dragging themselves broken and halting upon
earth. The starving beggar in the kennel felt it, and, not knowing
wherefore, drew a longer, deeper breath, as if of purer, more exalted
air; the poor poet in his garret was fed by it, and having stood near or
spoken to her, went back to his lair with lightening eyes and soul warmed
to believe that the words his Muse might speak the world might stay to
hear.

From the hour she stayed the last moments of John Oxon's victim she set
herself a work to do. None knew it but herself at first, and later Anne,
for 'twas done privately. From the hag who had told her of the poor
girl's hanging upon Tyburn Tree, she learned things by close questioning,
which to the old woman's dull wit seemed but the curiousness of a great
lady, and from others who stood too deep in awe of her to think of her as
a mere human being, she gathered clues which led her far in the tracing
of the evils following one wicked, heartless life. Where she could hear
of man, woman, or child on whom John Oxon's sins had fallen, or who had
suffered wrong by him, there she went to help, to give light, to give
comfort and encouragement. Strangely, as it seemed to them, and as if
done by the hand of Heaven, the poor tradesmen he had robbed were paid
their dues, youth he had led into evil ways was checked mysteriously and
set in better paths; women he had dragged downward were given aid and
chance of peace or happiness; children he had cast upon the world,
unfathered, and with no prospect but the education of th