This she has been doing many years, as the spirit within leads her, both in England and in this country. I wish you could see her--I know how you would love her. As for me, I look up to her with a kind of awe; yet she has such a pretty, simple-hearted innocence about her. I felt a little afraid of her at first, and thought all my pins and rings and little bows and fixtures would seem so many sins in her sight; but I found she could admire a bracelet or a gem as much as I did, and seemed to enjoy all my pretty things for me. She says so prettily, "If thee acts up to thy light, Eva, thee can do no more." I only wish that I were as sure as she is that I do. It is quite sweet of her, and puts me at ease in her presence. They are going to be gone all this week on some mission. I don't know yet exactly where, but I can't help feeling as if I wished some angel woman like Sibyl would take me off with her, and let me do a little something in this great and never finished work of helping and healing. I have always had a longing to do a little at it, and perhaps, with some one to inspire and guide me, even I might do some good.
This reminds me of a strange incident. The other night, as I was crossing the street, I saw a weird-looking young woman, very haggard and miserable, who seemed to be in a kind of uncertain way, hanging about our house. There was something about her face and eyes that affected me quite painfully, but I thought nothing of it at the time. But, the evening after our reception, as Harry and Bolton were walking about a square beyond our house, this creature came suddenly upon them and took Harry's arm. He threw her off with a sudden impulse, and then Bolton, like a good man, as he always is, and with that sort of quiet self-possession he always has, spoke to her and asked where her _mother_ was. That word was enough, and the poor thing began sobbing and crying, and then he took her and led her away to the St. Barnabas, a refuge for homeless people which is kept by some of our church Sisters, and there he left her; and Harry says he will tell Mr. St. John about it, so that he may find out what can be done for her, if anything.
When I think of meeting any such case personally, I feel how utterly weak and inexperienced I am, and how utterly unfit to guide or help, though I wish with my whole heart I could do something to help all poor desolate people. I feel a sort of self-reproach for being so very happy as I am while any are miserable. To take another subject,--I have been lately more and more intimate with Bolton. You know I sent you Caroline's letter about him. Well, really it seemed to me such a pity that two who are entirely devoted to each other should be living without the least comfort of intercommunion, that I could not help just trying the least little bit to bring them together. Harry rather warned me not to do it. These men are so prudent; their counsels seem rather cold to our hearts--is it not so, mother? Harry advised me not to name the subject to Bolton, and said _he_ would not dare do it for the world. Well, that's just because he's a man; he does not know how differently men receive the approaches of a woman. In fact, I soon found that there was no subject on which Bolton was so all alive and eager to hear. When I had once mentioned Caroline, he kept recurring to the subject, evidently longing to hear more from her; and so, one way and another, in firelight talks and moonlight walks, and times and places when words slip out before one thinks, the whole of what is to be known of Caroline's feelings went into his mind, and all that might be known of his to her passed into mine. I, in short, became a medium. And do you think I was going to let her fret her heart out in ignorance of anything I could tell her? Not if I know myself; in fact, I have been writing volumes to Caroline, for I am determined that no people made for each other shall go wandering up and down this labyrinth of life, missing their way at every turn, for want of what could be told them by some friendly good fairy who has the clue.