of necessity had followed-all gone the same way. I apologized for my mistake, slipped my little alms into the woman's hand, and turned away heart-broken. The account I received of her upon inquiry was, that far from wishing to beg or depend upon others, she concealed her poverty even from my informant, who was in the habit of visiting her to give spiritual comfort. He was too poor himself to offer more than a mite to any one individual of this famishing multitude. The woman never complained, but he had reason to feel sure that she had eaten nothing that day. He said she was a pious, godly woman, and respectable in all her habits. I spoke of the dirtiness of her person "Alas!" said he, "in such distress they have not the heart, if they had the means to be cleaner, which they have not." This is what we mean by abject misery.

and room.

But I weary you with my o'er true tale-if rightly placed, belonging to October, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five.

At last I found Cornelly's door.

It was opened by a tall, thin, ghastly-looking man, literally almost skin and bone. Once it appeared that he might have been handsome, and he had a courtesy of manner in which still lingered something of the old French way. "I believe your name is Cornelly?" "Yes, sir; that is my name."

"Mrs. Cornelly is very ill, I fear."

My wife, sir, if you mean?

God to visit her heavily."

It has pleased

"You are the person I was in search of. Mrs. G. V., a friend of mine, whose name I think is not unknown to you, has desired me to call."

The night is very cold, sir," shivering as if the sharp wind entered the very marrow of his scarcely-covered bones. "Will you not please to come in?" opening the door a little wider.

“Thank you. We will not keep the door open; it is very cold."

My nose was blue, my hands quite numbed. I could scarcely keep my teeth from chattering. I longed to come to the fire and warm myself.

But there was no fire.

The room was spacious enough, and furnished according to the fashion which still obtains in France. A large and somewhat handsome fourpost bed, with red and white curtains, of a thick sort of calico, common to those days, covered with a representation of forest scenery, with trees, wild plants, wild boars, and wild hunters, stood in the farther corner of it. Around the room were one or two handsome and very antique chairs of carved oak, very heavy, and very uncomfortable to sit upon. They would have been the rapture of the present day—but such things were not to the taste of those times. A' curious-looking old chest, very large and very heavy, stood against one of the walls, a walnut sloping desk or secretary, with drawers beneath, elaborately ornamented with brass handles and shields, was opposite to it, all of no value then. The very pawnbroker would not lumber his shop with them. The floor was bare, and had once been highly polished, but it was now stained and dirty; and the large, open fire-place stood, with an exception I shall no

tice by and by, empty and cold this dreadful night.

All the little ornaments which had once

adorned the mantel-piece the quaint brass candlesticks, the handsome sea-shells, the old wooden and ivory specimens of carving-work in figures of men and animals, relics of ancient French industry-had disappeared. A single candlestick containing a farthing rushlight, stood upon the mantel-piece, and threw so faint and flickering a light round the room, that it was difficult to distinguish objects close to it. And as for the remoter corners of the chamber, they lay in impenetrable darkness. A cough-the dreadful, racking, agonizing cough of consumption—was heard from the bed. Cornelly hastened to lift up the sufferer, signing to me to keep still.

This gave me the opportunity to examine the room and its contents, and likewise its inhabitants, for the man and his wife were not alone.

By the imperfect light I could distinguish the dark figure of a man of middle age, seated at a table at no great distance from the bed, and that of a youth just entering into manhood,

VOL. I.

3

C

kneeling before the fire-place, endeavouring to light a small heap of wood upon the hearth, by means of a match he held in his hand; but the wood seemed damp, and as if it would not burn. He looked towards the gentleman at the table— for a gentleman it was-as much as to say, "What is to be done ?"

His father-for it was his father-shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, in a sort of pitying despair. Then he rose from his seat, and carried a glass in which was the potion he had been preparing, to the side of the bed. He administered the medicine to the sick woman; his son, who had risen from the hearth, assisting to raise her. After she had taken it, the cough abated, and she seemed relieved, and sank into a slumber, rather the result of exhaustion than of anything else. The two gentlemen remained standing by the side of the bed, watching her, and I had time to observe them by the light of the rushlight, which, in their present position, fell full upon their features.

The elder of the two was a man rather above than below the common size, well, not to