isible in his face.

The shrunken and pitiful figure revolved several times, stamping on her
heels, then stopped with the same grotesque coquetry.

"She's a funny old thing, isn't she?" said the Matron to Anne. "She
gives us many a laugh."

"It's too humbling to look at. I cannot laugh," said Anne. "Poor old
thing, to have come to that."

"She doesn't know, you know," said the Matron. "You're wasting your
pity. They're most of them better off in the infirmary here than they
were outside. You've no idea what a dirty state _she_ was found in for
one."

"It's the painfulness of such a sight--age without honour," repeated
Anne.

"I've no time to think of that sort of thing," replied the Matron, as
they began to ascend the wide stairs to the bed rooms, a woman, who was
scrubbing the steps with sand, standing aside to let them pass.

Several women were sitting up in bed, with starched night-caps nodding
at different angles. Over the fireplace was a lithograph of Queen
Victoria giving the Bible as the source of England's greatness to an
Indian potentate, and beneath it, sitting very still in a large
armchair, was Jane Evans staring into the fire. She was very quiet,
broken, and helplessly docile. Her stillness was alarming. She seemed to
be already dead in spirit. Even the child soon to be separated from her
scarcely concerned her. She was quite neat. Thin and fatigued as her
face was, she did not appear to have suffered greatly in health.

"Jane, my dear, I've not come to blame you," began Anne, "I've come to
see if there's anything I can do to make it easier for you to face the
future and what's coming. I only heard of you coming here by accident or
you shouldn't have been left alone. You mustn't think everybody's
forsaken you and you've no friend left to you. It's often the case that
you know your true friends in trouble," she continued sententiously.
"And if only you could find the best Friend of all now when you need Him
most." Her prim phrasing changed to earnestness. "There was a woman once
that they dragged out in front of everybody for evil-doing. But He
wouldn't have it. He put them to silence, and then when she was all
alone with Him He showed her how tender He was to them that do wrong. If
you only knew Him and His kindness, and how He can understand any kind
of trouble. There's a good deal you think none of us can understand, but
_He_ can if you tell Him." She wiped her eyes. Jane did not seem to have