Visiting day, which came every fourth Wednesday, was a great occasion in the institution.

For two weeks before it was due, the question was continually asked me,—

"Is it next Wednesday, or a week from next Wednesday, that is visiting day? I wonder if my husband will come! I wonder if anybody will come to see me! I want to see the old man so much! I want to hear from the childer so much!"

For a day or two it was my constant care to repress the talk occasioned by the overflowing of their expectations, or fears, so as to get their work done by the women.

The Doctor, when he came to make his visits, passed the kitchen door. That door was made of small panes of ground glass. There was a wooden one inside, to slide over it at night. When he announced his arrival, he had knocked upon one of the panes, with the head of his cane, and broken it. It had been done apparently for mischief; but I thought it was to give the prisoners a glimpse of the blue sky, and the green trees, and the bright flowers that were in front of the prison.

The windows of the kitchen were of the same ground glass, cut into small panes of six by seven. They were made fifty or a hundred years ago, no doubt, with the utilitarian notion of producing greater diligence in the inmates by shutting out all attractive sights which might decoy them from their work. The Matron was taken into the account; her attention must not be drawn from the care of her maidens.

If that were a good rule for the inferior officers and prisoners, why might it not apply with propriety to the Head Matron and Master? The city or state might be saved the large item of expense, in "supporting the institution," of cultivating handsome grounds exclusively for their benefit?

It was a deed of mercy to break that window pane. Many a time when I have seen the lowering brow, or heard the angry remark, I have saved a war of words, perhaps of hands, by sending one of the belligerents to that broken pane to see if the Doctor were on his way to the hospital, or if the bread or meat were coming round.

If I saw the dissatisfaction to be deep-rooted, I gave the command,—

"Stand there and watch a few moments!"

That broken pane, on that visiting day, was an outlet for much anxiety. One of the women stood sentinel there all day—sometimes one, sometimes another.

The steam woman, in her anxiety to discover the approach of her "old man," forgot the care of her boiler, and created quite a scene. She turned the water into it and went to the broken pane to look a moment, forgot to turn it off, and the consequence was an overflow which put out her fire and flooded the floor,—created what McMullins called an "explosion." This she did twice in the forenoon.

The hurry and scurry which was created to relight the fire, and sweep the water down the hatches, diverted the attention of all for a few moments, and passed away the wearisome time of waiting. I pitied the poor old thing as the day wore away, and there was no call for her to go out and see her husband.

"What time is it, if you please, ma'am?" was the continually repeated question when I went near her.

"I don't expect any one to see me," was the remark of the volatile O'Brien.

"Then why do you stand at the window so much to watch?" I asked.

"I want to see who comes to see the others. I want to see if anybody comes in that I know."

Then, the restless thing would mount the window seat. "There goes Johnny, or Charley, or Jimmy, or Dolan." She either saw some of her old associates, with her "two eyes," or through the vision of her imagination. Her suppositions, as to whom they came to see, were as active as her curiosity to see who came.

For the last time the steam woman asked,—

"It is five yet, ma'am?"

I looked at my watch. "Yes, Allen, and five minutes past."

She dropped upon a low table, by which she stood, and burst into tears.

I walked round the kitchen a few times to let her fret spend itself; then I went back, and stood by her side.

"How many children have you, Allen?"

"Three, ma'am; two boys and a girl."

"If they were not all right your husband would have come, or sent some one to tell you."

"That's what I'm afraid of, ma'am. The little girl has had a fever. I'm afraid she is worse, or has died, and my husband hates to tell me."

"Perhaps he couldn't leave his work. What does he do?"

"He's a house-builder, ma'am. He's one of the best workmen, ma'am, and they don't like to let him go. He gets three dollars a day, and now he has the whole care of the childer."

"What did you come in here for, Allen?"

"Shoplifting, ma'am."

"With your husband earning three dollars a day you had no excuse; that was enough to keep you comfortably."

"So it would, ma'am, if I had been contented. I don't know what made me,—I got a hankering for it. It was eighteen years ago, I was going out to buy me a silk dress, and one of my comrades went with me. I stood looking at a piece of silk, and was going to buy it. She touched my shoulder, 'don't buy that till we look in another store!' When we got out she showed me a piece of silk that she had under her shawl. She got it while I was looking at the other. After that we used to go together."

"Did you ever get caught before?"

"Yes, ma'am; I was in here seven years ago."

"And for eighteen years you have followed that wicked life, constantly, and never got caught but twice."

"I never stole from the poor. It was from those that could well afford to spare it. I always took the richest of silks and satins and velvets and linens. Sometimes I had seven or eight hundred dollars' worth at a time."

There was an exhibition of pride in her statement.

The larger the crime, the more honorable, she thought. A strange code of honesty, but a very common one, it would be found, if the practical principles of every person were subjected to analysis.

"But you had no right to the goods; you paid nothing for them."

"It is the way they do. If a rich customer goes into one of those big stores, they ask him a big price. If a poorer one comes in, and they think he knows what a thing is worth, they don't ask him so much. What is that but stealing?"

"Their doing wrong does not make it right for you to do wrong. What did you do with what you took?"

"Sometimes I used it, and sometimes I sold it at people's doors. I went out West a great many times with a lot."

"What did you intend to do with your money?"

"Buy a big house, and live in the fashion, when the childer get up."

"Do you think you would enjoy a house bought with money got in that way?"

"Most of the big houses are bought with money got in that way. I know many a person as has carried on the business for years, and got rich by it."

"The business of shoplifting! then the crime has become dignified into a business." Rather a liberal translation of the example set, I thought.

"Did your husband know what you were doing?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did he approve of it?"

"No, ma'am; he always warned me, and sometimes forbid me. But as soon as he was off to his work, I would shift my clothes and go out. I hurried back, and got them shifted again before he came home; and he wouldn't know it till I had got a great many pieces."

"Does he turn against you now?"

"O no! He is a good man; and he cried when I came here,—for me and the poor childer. He pitied me, and told me how hard it would be on me, seein' I was never used to it."

Crazy Manhattan came up just in time to hear the last sentence.

"An' sure it is hard on her! I've known her outside, and she's not bein' used to lift her finger to work."

"She had better have been, than to have been lifting her finger to take other people's goods."

"Give me a slice of bread, ma'am, an' you please! I've been ironing in the wash-room, and I've done your own things beautifully. Don't tell the Deputy!" she said, as she slipped it under her apron and ran away.

"I knew her a little outside," said the steam woman; "but she was nothing but a house thief!"

Well, well! the fashions of society obtain among thieves as well as the principles. A shop lifter ranks in a higher grade than a house thief.

I talked with Allen some time, and tried to show her that whatever others might do was no excuse for her in wrong doing. At last she admitted it; but wound up by saying,—

"Ise got such an itching in my fingers for it, I couldn't help taking the things."

The patience which is required to inculcate right principles, where wrong ones have been practiced for half a century, is incalculable. But it does not come in comparison with that which is exercised towards us by the long-suffering Father of our spirits.