--you set my heart going. You spoke of the poor women like an angel of
compassion. You said, we were all mixed up with their fate--I forget the
words. But no one ever heard in Church anything that touched me so.
I worshipped you. You said, you thought of them often, and longed to
find out what you could do to help. And I thought, if they could hear
you, and only come near you, as I was--ah, my heaven! Unhappy
experiences? Yes. But when men get women on the slope to their
perdition, they have no mercy, none. They deceive, and they lie; they
are false in acts and words; they do as much as murder. They're never
hanged for it. They make the Laws! And then they become fathers of
families, and point the finger at the "wretched creatures." They have a
dozen names against women, for one at themselves.'

'It maddens me at times to think . . . !' said Nesta, burning with the
sting of vile names.

Oh, there are bad women as well as bad men: but men have the power and
the lead, and they take advantage of it; and then they turn round and
execrate us for not having what they have robbed us of!'

'I blame women--if I may dare, at my age,' said Nesta, and her bosom
heaved. 'Women should feel for their sex; they should not allow the
names; they should go among their unhappier sisters. At the worst, they
are sisters! I am sure, that fallen cannot mean--Christ shows it does
not. He changes the tone of Scripture. The women who are made outcasts,
must be hopeless and go to utter ruin. We should, if we pretend to be
better, step between them and that. There cannot be any goodness unless
it is a practiced goodness. Otherwise it is nothing more than paint on
canvas. You speak to me of my innocence. What is it worth, if it is
only a picture and does no work to help to rescue? I fear I think most