be far more comfortable in a hospital; but she says she cannot leave the
children, she would rather die at home. That is what they all say.'

'But the poor creatures mean what they say, Mr. Hamilton.'

'Oh, but it is all nonsense!' he returned irritably. 'She can do nothing
for the children; she cannot have a moment's quiet or a moment's comfort,
with all those grimy noisy creatures rushing in and out. I found her
sitting up in bed yesterday, in danger of breaking a blood-vessel through
coughing, because one of the imps had fallen down and cut his head and
she was trying to plaster it.'

'Her husband ought to be with her,' I said, somewhat indignantly.

'He is on a job somewhere, and cannot come home; they must have bread
to eat, and he must work. This is the house,' pointing to a low white
cottage at the end of a long straggling street of similar houses; two or
three untidy-looking children were playing in the front garden with some
oyster-shells and a wooden horse without a head. One little white-headed
urchin clapped his hands when he saw Mr. Hamilton, and a pretty little
girl with a very dirty face ran up to him and clasped him round the knee.

''As 'oo any pennies to-day?' she lisped.

'No nonsense; run away, children,' he said, in a rough voice that did not
in the least alarm them, for they scampered after us into the porch until
an elder girl, with a year-old baby in her arms, met us on the threshold
and scolded them away.

Mr. Hamilton shook a big stick at them.

'I shall give no pennies to children with dirty faces. Well, Peggy, how
is mother? Have the boys gone to school, both of them? That is right.
This is the lady who is coming to look after mother.'

Here Peggy dropped a courtesy, and said, 'Yes, sir,' and 'yes please,
mum.'

'Mind you do all she tells you. Now out of my way. I want to speak to
your grandmother a moment, and then I will come into the other room.'

I followed him into the untidy, miserable looking kitchen. An old woman
was sitting by the fire with an infant in her arms; we found out that it
belonged to the neighbour who was washing out some things in the yard.
She came in by and by, clattering over the stones in her thick clogs,--a
brisk, untidy-looking young woman,--and looked at me curiously as she
took her baby.

'I must be going home now, granny,' she said, in a loud, good-humoured
voice. 'Peggy can rinse out the few things I've left.'

Granny had a pleasant, weather-bea