the shelves and the horses and the wagons. But today it suddenly dawned upon me that they were flesh and blood and bound to me by the most sacred ties. I must do something for them."

"Strange, isn't it? The same thing has been in my mind ever since I was down to the store last week," said Mrs. Warren. "It seems to me," she continued, "that something ought to be done for the girls. I noticed how pale they were."

"I think," said Mr. Warren, "the place to begin is to pay them better wages. Think of the girls living on three dollars a week. I do not wonder we are constantly losing them by sickness."

So day by day they talked over the matter and during the seven years since this conversation many changes had been brought about. Rest rooms had been provided. Houses had been fitted up in which many of the girls roomed and boarded. Mrs. Warren had become acquainted with the girls, and occasionally had a group of them at the house for an evening. Mr. Warren always remembered his help at Thanksgiving time and at the Christmas season. He made

special arrangements with a kind physician to treat any of them when ill, if they wished, and a notice was placed in the rest rooms, requesting that he be notified of any case of illness among the men and women in his service.

The results among the employees were soon noticeable. The careless customer could see that the clerks in Mr. Warren's great store were different from those in others. Mr. Warren used to tell his wife laughingly that the work was so much better done than formerly that he was in danger of becoming selfish in helping others. A department of the savings bank of which Mr. Warren was president was started in the store, and on every Saturday afternoon money could be deposited. Gradually the employees found that by frugality a little sum could be saved. At the close of the year Mr. Warren had deposited to each one's credit a small gift.

It was interesting to see the proprietor handle the difficult cases that will arise under any circumstances. He was the same exacting business man. He expected everyone in his employ to attend strictly to his work

and to show perfect courtesy to the customers. The untruthful and dishonest trembled to meet the searching and grieved look of Mr. Warren. But his way of dealing with them was different from formerly.

The manager of the store told me of Jack Turner. Jack had been taken in as a collector. He was seventeen years old and a bright young man. At the end of the third year, it was unexpectedly discovered that for six months he had been taking funds and by false entries attempting to hide his crime. One day he was summoned into Mr. Warren's private office.

"No one knows what happened," said the manager, "but after a half hour I was summoned and found Mr. Warren and Jack both in tears. 'You will see that Mr. Turner is paid ten dollars a month more salary from last Monday morning,' was all that was said. I said nothing but you could have knocked me over with a feather. We shall have a pretty state of affairs, I thought, if this is the way fraud is to be honored. But do you know, sir, that during the two years since that Jack Turner has been the best man in the concern? We have had to ad

vance him, and no one works harder and can be trusted more safely than he. I believe he would die before he would take a cent that doesn't belong to him. He'll be a partner in this or some other concern some day, or I miss my guess."

The manager was silent a moment, and then continued, with evident emotion.

"About six years ago Mr. Warren called me into his office, and said, 'Mr. Manning, you know that I have expected the strictest discipline of you, and that you must still continue; but,' and I shall never forget the look that came over his face, 'in all this you and I must do unto others as we would that they should do unto us, and when any severity must be used, always consult me. first.' It has been a new day in this store since then. I knew him well enough to obey, though I didn't believe you could run a store on that principle. I have learned through these years that it is not only right but always safest to follow the Golden Rule."

Often I used to run across the traces of Mrs. Warren's kindly ministry. Her coach

man told me that, in the early winter, he was driving her down the main street and suddenly she signaled him to stop. Alighting, she approached a little girl that, scantily clad and shaking with cold, stood before one of the windows of a store looking at the warm clothing there displayed, and said,

"Little girl, what are you looking at?"

She hesitated for a moment, but the gentle voice and the kindly face won her confidence, and as her eyes filled with tears she replied:

"Mum, I was thinkin' how 'twould feel to have them warm clothes and shoes on, and that there wouldn't be no more shakin' in the cold."

"Come with me and you shall be warm," came the gentle response.

"And would you think it," the old man added, and I give you his own words, "when they come out again, that girl was clothed from top to tip with warm duds and you wouldn't have knowed her, and when Mrs. Warren got her name and where she lived and said good-bye, that gal ran after her to the carriage and asked in a husky voice, "Are you an angel?'"