neither too long nor too wide. The wearer can move about in it with freedom, and that is what it was meant for.

"Our dress is ugly," she said to me, “but then it is useful; it suits us, because "-and she shook her arms in the very wide sleeves—“ because you see if I go to visit a poor sick old man, and I find his bed wants to be made, I can lift him up, make the bed, and put him back again without disarranging my robe in the least."

The movement of the arms at once told me how all that would be done; I saw those good strong arms as plainly at work as if I had been in the sick room myself. But I wanted to see it actually. "Will you take me to see some of your poor ?" "With all my heart. I am just going to make a course; will you come now ?"

"Yes."

"Allons."

We went out, and my good companion's rule was not certainly that of the apostolic precept, "salute no man by the way," for she was constantly nodding to children and workpeople, bowing to ladies and gentlemen, and stopping to speak to many who had something to say. I remembered having heard long, long ago, at the time of the Evangelical movement in England, when good persons tried to act literally on Scriptural injunctions, that some would not salute their friends in the street. I asked my companion if such were her rule.

"What," said she, " do you think to be Sisters of Charity it is necessary to be Bears?"

We were soon in a dark cellar, down the stairs of which the white cap that rapidly descended before me was my only guide. Its wearer's eyes were evidently accustomed to the darkness, but I could not see a bit.

"Good morning. Well, how goes it to-day?— have you had soup? There will be a distribution to-morrow. You will be sure to send; will you not? Your daughter has come to see you? Ah! that is well. Good morning, my friend."

The white cap ascends the stairs before me, and I remount to daylight just as I am beginning to be able dimly to see that an old sea-worn fisherman has raised himself up on the bed to which he has been for three years confined, and is looking up at that white cap which seems to shed a gleam of light and pleasure into his cave.

'Why is he not taken from that cellar into an asylum ?"

"He would rather be there; he is used to it now; his daughter is married, and her husband occupies the room above, so that she sees him often; he is well taken care of."

We plunged down into another cellar; a miserable place; it was closed up; my guide forced open the door. A poor wretched old woman, what the neighbours called "an old girl," being one of the tribe who, while being of the order of single sisters,

are somehow not held in the reputation which attaches to those who are known to have chosen the state religiously. We found her lying in bed shut up in her den. She was not of sound mind; the neighbours complained that she was unsociable, and kept her place so dirty that it was an annoyance to them. 66 Very well," said the Sister, "I shall send the police to see to that," and so we moved on. "Now I will bring you to an alley where the Ladies of Charity could not go."

"Why not?"

"It would not be proper for them; their husbands would not like that."

I understood. Presently a woman with a pretty little child in her arms followed the Sister, and presented some petition for help.

"I can do nothing in that," was the answer. The woman in a low voice continued to plead. "That does not depend upon me, my friend; you must go to the gentlemen of the Bureau."

I understood the woman to beg for a recommendation to them, but the sister would not yield. "No, no, go to the gentlemen of the Bureau," was all she would say.

The gentlemen of the Bureau answering to our parish officers, it struck me that our visiting ladies would not perhaps think of sending a poor woman with an infant in her arms to look for help there.

"She has three children," said the Sister.

"Poor thing," I responded.

"It is her own fault; she is not married." I understood the good Sister's refusal now.

"Now I will take you to see a charming old couple," she quickly said, and as quickly mounted up a tolerable staircase, and opening a door before I had gained the top, called out in a cheery tone what I translate as, "Hey-day! so you have actually shaved! Come, that is well!-and the new boots too!"

I had got up and in, and there I saw a comical picture. A good sized decent room, without a single article of furniture; two beds, made like the berths of a ship, in the wall; and the wide, and slightly raised, open hearth of a French fire-place serving as a seat for an old man and woman, who sat one at each side of a pot hung over the fire, with their heads in the chimney.

No sooner had the white cap appeared, than the old man had drawn his out and begun to rise; he soon stood quite erect, planting himself at the upper end of the room, and facing her, and the door at which she entered, with something of the air of the recruit who had just donned his regimentals, and stood before the drill sergeant; grinning and dipping a shaggy head, and saying, "Yes, my sister! Yes, my sister," to everything. The old woman was longer about her work of extrication; for she was infirm in her limbs, and could not reach to her stick, which she kept asking her old man to hand

her, while he, wholly taken up with the admiration he excited, or the inspection he was undergoing, was quite forgetful of his required attentions. I saw the extended hand, and reached the stick. She hobbled out with wonderful speed, ranged herself at the old man's side, and there they both stood, like a pair of water-birds, dipping their heads, and seeming to enjoy themselves amazingly.

"So, Monsieur, you have got on the boots too." "Yes, my sister," with a grin and a dip accompanying the answer, which were duly repeated by the woman. They were old boots, about three inches too long, and drolly turned up in front. "And the coat."

"Yes, my sister," dipping, and moving, or trying to move, in an old coat much too tight.

"Then we shall see you at Church on Sunday." "Yes, my sister."

The little old woman looked like a dried-up Laplander. The sister drew my attention to the only moveable article, except the pot on the fire, that was to be seen in the room; it was a heap of sand, and she did so in order to explain to me that the old gentleman was by profession a sand collector. I felt a curiosity to know how very long this curious old couple had lived together in the bonds of matrimony; they seemed such a well matched friendly pair, that I thought for nearly half a century they had borne that pleasant yoke without difficulty. "How long have you been married ?" I asked the old dame.