Betty Lamb remained in the town, a fine figure of a woman, but bowed in
the shoulders, dirty, and clad in rags. At last, when her strong
defiance of poverty and need would no longer serve her, she was seen to
go about from door to door in the early dawn, raking among the ashes for
such articles as she chose to put in an old sack and carry upon her
back. The townsfolk honestly thought that all had been done that could
be done to make a decent woman of her, and now in her old age she must
needs go down to the gutter.

One day a man came to the town with circus pictures and a bucket of
paste. He pasted his pictures upon all the blank spaces of walls which
he could find. Great was the joy of the children who stood and stared,
their little hearts made glad by novelty and colour. Great was the
surprise of the older folk, who said, 'It is a new thing in the world
when so great a show as this comes out of the accustomed track of shows
to erect its tent in our small town!' Yet so it was; from some whim of
the manager, or of some one who had the ear of the manager, the thing
was decreed.

Upon these circus pictures there figured, in a series of many wonderful
harlequin attitudes, a certain Signor Lambetti. Very foreign was the
curl of his hair and the waxen ends of his moustache; very magnificent
was his physique; he wore the finest of silken tights and crimson small
clothes, and medals were depicted hanging upon his breast.

When at length the circus came for that one night's entertainment and
the huge tent was set up upon the common not far from the old red ruin,
all the town flocked to see the brilliant spectacle. The minister was
there, and what was more, his wife and daughters too; they were far
grander than he was, and wore silken furbelows and fringed shawls. The
minister paid for the best seats for them to sit in. All the shopkeepers
were there; every man, woman and child in all the town who could find as
much as sixpence to pay for standing room was there. But the strangest
circumstance was that before the show began a man went out from the
brightly-lit doorway and called in a loud voice to the beggars and
little ragged boys and girls who had come to survey the tent on the
outside, and he brought them all in and gave them a good part of the
tent to sit in, although they had not sixpence to pay, nor even a penny.

Ah! in those days it was a very grand sight. There were elephants who
performed tricks, and camels who w