fully alive to the mischief she became totally blind, and had to go into the workhouse. She is Miss N.'s connecting link with that community. It is good for her that she has been afflicted, for she is kept out of temptation, and has learned to read and to love God's Word. She has just been recounting with pleasure and pardonable pride, how she takes her raised Bible and reads to other patients, who like to watch the blind woman reading, with her fingers, the book she never cared to open when she had eyes to see.

The grey-haired old lady who sits next her, Mrs. R., first became known to the hostess through coming to her house as guide to the blind woman, but now Miss N. has become greatly interested in her for her own sake. She is a terrible sufferer from an enormous but not malignant tumour. She has been expressing her gratitude and delight in no measured terms, but there was no intentional irreverence in her exclamation as she sank into the comfortable though very shabbily upholstered arm-chair by the fire: "Dear me, I often say I think Heaven will be like sitting in Miss N.'s easy-chair."

It is difficult to believe that the thin sharpfeatured woman on the opposite side of the table comes from the workhouse, especially as she does not wear the distinctive dress; she expresses herself so well in conversation, and there is an air almost of refinement about her. There is some mystery in the case. Her story would make a very interesting paper, but Miss N. is beginning to suspect that the clue to the mystery, like that of so many sad mysteries, is to be found in the one word Drink. She feels her position severely, and cannot bear to go out in the workhouse dress, so she adopts an expedient which is within her legal rights, but is very provoking to the authorities. Whenever she wishes to go out she demands her discharge, and has her own clothes which she wore when she entered the workhouse returned to her; then in the evening, when she is ready to return, she presents herself at the familiar gates as a fresh applicant for admission, and has to go through all the reiterated particulars of her own case. "That man who does the writing," she says, "always asks me the same questions: 'Is your husband living? Why are you not living with him?' I say, sometimes, 'Oh, you know as well as I do now!' but I always have to answer, all the same."

The fourth guest, E. B., that pale young woman with a rather vacant expression on the face, that yet looks quietly pleased, has a sad history. But, alas she is only one of many, many bright young girls, some of whom have had a far better start, and far more light than herself, who have found the hard way of transgression lead them to that place from where they have no hope of returning to respect. able happy life-the workhouse ward, in which no visiting is allowed. This poor girl of weak intellect has been far more sinned against than sinning. She was a child who specially needed a mother's care, as she was subject to that terrible malady epilepsy. But, alas! she early lost her mother, and her father had no patience with the wild uncertain temper that in her case, as in so

many, accompanied the affliction, so he relieved himself of further trouble with her by simply turning her out of doors to shift for herself. She was glad to take a situation in what was represented to her as a coffee-house; but it was a house of quite another kind, and very soon this simple helpless girl was one of the large class of "unfortunates." She had no home to shelter her in her trouble; it was too late for her relentless father to show mercy, for he had been called to his account; so she just wandered about till she could wander no longer, and then drifted into the workhouse, of which she had been an inmate a few weeks before Miss N. found her. The poor thing was touchingly responsive to kindness. "Then you have no relative in the world that you know of?" asked Miss N. one day, when in a long quiet talk she had elicited the details of her past life. "No one but you, miss," was the touching response. From that hour Miss N. resolved to be a true sister to her poor relative, and sealed the silent compact with the first kiss the desolate girl had received since the kiss of the betrayer had touched her cheek. It was impossible, owing to her affliction, to obtain a situation for her. The workhouse was really the safest place, but much might be done to brighten her life there, and the brightest spots in it were these afternoons out.

To-day Miss N. has been specially reminded of the real relationship between herself and her guests, for part of the entertainment has been a little music. Her two nephews, glad as most children are to give pleasure, have been singing some of their school songs, and a few of Sankey's hymns; but the favourite has been a piece from the Cristian Choir called the "Two Lives," beginning

"Two babes were born in the self-same town,
On the very self-same day-

and ending with

"Two women lay dead in the self-same town." And if

"Jesus who died for rich and poor,

In His wondrous holy love,
Took both the sisters in His arms
And carried them above,
Then all the difference vanished quite,

For in Heaven none would know
Which of them lived in the terraced house
And which in the street below."

The admiration of the audience for the youthful performers is altogether immoderate. "Don't they sing lovely? and ain't they beautiful boys?" Miss N. has to remind them that such unqualified praise is hardly good for boys. But there is no fear of making pussy conceited, so the cat and her kitten are duly admired. "Do let me feel the kitten," says Mrs. W., and as the boys hold it on her knee for her, her hands all go over the soft fur. "I can feel it's a little beauty," she says. Her imagination comes to her aid too at teatime, for they have what was to them an unheard of delicacy of some

Guava jelly.

I

Their host has had a jar from friends in the West Indies, and thinks this the most fitting occasion to open it. "They say it's a most beautiful colour," says the blind woman, "and I can quite imagine it is by the taste. shall tell matron we've had something for tea we never tasted before, she'll be so pleased to hear how we enjoyed ourselves. She was almost as glad as we were when your letter came, she always likes us to come here, because she knows it is such a treat, and she do like us to have treats as long as we behave ourselves."

The provision for the table is very simple, a good plain cake and little tarts, and as this is a birthday party, there is an exceedingly popular plum pudding. At first Miss N. used to provide meat for her poor friends, but she soon learnt by experience that anything in the nature of sweetmeats or pastry was much more appreciated as well as less expensive, as a rule. The inmates of the workhouse get enough plain food, but something nice, however simple, is a luxury.

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you

But at last tea is over, Mrs. R. says rather ruefully, "I'm afraid it's time we were going home." Oh, Miss N., my dear," says Mrs. W., who is by no means backward in coming forward, won't forget the wool you promised me." The blind woman takes great pleasure in knitting up bright-coloured wool. They tell me what the colours are, and I imagine what will look nice together," she says. She has brought some of her work to-day as a birthday present for her friend.

There are other presents which Miss N. will put away carefully among her treasures. Poor E. B.'s dull face lights up with a bright smile as she whispers, "I've got a present for you," and she furtively produces something carefully done up in a not very clean piece of newspaper, but the really tasteful crochet edging inside the paper is scrupulously clean. Miss N. provided her with the cotton and hook, and the occupation had been a work of love to her. The poor girl's malady grew afterwards so much worse that it seriously affected her brain and she had to be removed to the County Asylum. Miss N. still supplied her with cotton and she was allowed to do the work, which had a distinctly tranquilising effect on her disordered mind.

But all this time Mrs. R. is meekly waiting with her offering.

"Don't say a word about it, miss," she says as she displays with a proud smile three kettleholders made out of all sorts of pieces, silk, cotton, and ribbon, many of which have come out of Miss N.'s rag bag. It was a red-letter day for the old people, when they were allowed to rummage over the contents of that rag-bag and take anything they wanted. There was very little left after the selection had been made.

As they left, the guests were presented with little parcels of tea and sugar, and the remaining cakes and pastry judiciously divided. Their hostess cut short the voluminous expressions of gratitude by the serio-comic remark: " Perhaps some day I may be in the workhouse, and then I hope some one will come and see me, or ask me out to tea."

This remark was taken in solemn earnest by at least one of her hearers, for when some time afterwards Miss N. went to visit Mrs. R. in the infirmary, as she was too ill to accompany the others on their next visit, she said very emphatically: "My dear, I have been thinking so much of what you said about some day being in the workhouse, and I've been thinking if the Lord should spare me, how glad I should be to come to see you." Miss N. does not feel anxious for that time to come, not even for the pleasure of being visited by such a good old Christian, but she does look forward to the day when her friends from the workhouse will receive her into everlasting habitations.

This little sketch from life has been given with a very practical purpose to interest others in their poor relations. If any readers feel moved to do something to lighten the dreary lot of the inmates, if only to hunt up from their stores coloured wools, pieces of patchwork or interesting books, it will not have been written in vain. It may be, however, that some who read this may have a guestchamber, which for a few hours could be placed at the service of such guests as these, or they may be moved to visit the infirm, lonely sufferers, or to think out fresh ways of being practically helpful to the least of these "Christ's brethren."

TALKS WITH WORKERS.

ment of Time.

N. G.

Either

"ONE-HALF of the worry and confusion The Manage of life," says Dr. James Stalker, "arises from doing things at the wrong time, the mind being either weakened by borrowing to-day the trouble of to-morrow, or exhausted by having on hand that which ought to have been done yesterday." May we not add that the other half-as far as the performance of our work is concerned arises from our undertaking_more than we can reasonably expect to do? through personal ambition, or too easy good-nature, or excitement obscuring our better judgment of what is really our proper duty and calling, we undertake too much, arrange the work badly, and take no pains to calculate what we can fairly do in a day. Yet another common cause of failure is that when we have a number of tasks before us, we are apt to begin, not with the most important, but with the one we like to do best. This we enjoy and linger over, till at last, at the eleventh hour, we find ourselves hurrying desperately through those things which ought to have had our earliest and most deliberate attention. First what we must do; then what we want to do: this should be the order of our doing. "Be very thankful," said Charles Kingsley once, "if, when you get up in the morning, there is something before you that you've got to do to-day, whether you like it or not." "There's many a good bit of work done with a sad heart," says George Eliot's Adam Bede. The great thing is to "buckle-to" and do it, leaving the pleasant tasks till afterwards.

E. W.

IT

sorts of dirty rubbish were there. In the shop were sacks full of evil-smelling débris, and a great basin of dripping stood on the counter close to the skull with its terrible empty eye sockets.

It was altogether an unsavoury place. There were unnameable horrors connected with it. Sometimes the old rags were there so long that they had to be burned eventually. If custom could not stale its infinite variety for the little shop boy, neither could it make him philosophical about its monotony of filth. His very being shrank from the thought of the place, in the midst of which a portion of every day had to be passed.

When he had prepared the shop for the admiration of the public, Stephen fetched a jug and stood at the door waiting for the milkman to come round with the milk. There was not much of that innocuous beverage consumed at the Wiltshires, but Mrs. Wiltshire liked a little in her matutinal cup of tea. It was a raw and chilly morning, and the boy's face was soon livid, except where the bruises on forehead and chin stood out in dark relief against his pallid complexion. His little red hands could hardly hold the jug when he took it from the milkman, but he managed to carry it in safety to the back parlour and place it on the table.

1.

T was morning. The rag and bone shop looked more than usually dreadful to-day, thought the little boy who took down the shutters and let in the dim light. He was always glad when the shutters were down, for there was something uncanny about the place when illumined only by the candle he held in his hand. He was frightened at the skull which gleamed so white on the counter; at the skinned rabbit which hung beside the rusty black skirt Mr. Wiltshire had brought home yesterday; at the glaring green eyes of the cat which always slept among the rags in the corner, and whom his entrance had disturbed, so that it opened its mouth and yawned till Stephen fancied he could see inside to its very tail. He hastened to undo the door and take down the shutters. The contents of the window were varied, and only resembled each other in their unattractiveness; bottles, old clothes, broken crockery, all

There was no other occupant of the room at present, but before very long a woman came shuffling down the steep stairs. She was attired in a skirt of some red material trimmed with braid, much of which was hanging loose, and a black bodice only partially buttoned, the means of holding it together being conspicuously absent. She was a bloated, untidy, dreary woman. Her hair was in disorder, and her face, like Stephen's, was adorned by bruises.

She took no notice of Stephen, but began to lay the breakfast things.

Stephen was given a crust of bread, which he began to eat with as much eagerness as if it had been a delicious morsel, thereby verifying the hackneyed proverb

that hunger is the best sauce. Mrs. Wiltshire made herself a cup of tea. Breakfast was an informal meal in that establishment, owing to the irregular habits of the family. She drank the beverage as she went to and fro fetching what would be required by her son and her husband, who would be down soon and want a good deal of solid nourishment before starting on their rounds.

The son appeared first. He was a great hulking fellow, who helped his father to spend the money they made, not by the sale of rags and bones, but by various forms of betting and gambling. for which the other trade was but a shield. He was at present a little sensitive on the subject of his hair, for the nation had recently called upon him to comply with its rules as to the length requisite for certain gentlemen whom it supported.

He did not greet his mother. Stephen, too, could have dispensed with any salute, as it took the form in his case of a kick and an oath in passing. He was used to these pleasantries, but they were not congenial to him, and familiarity made them no more so. Then Mr. Wiltshire, junior, turned his attention to the beef and beer with which he fortified himself for the shouting that formed part of his work.

Stephen stood as near the fire as he dared and finished his crust. Mrs. Wiltshire, after a while, gave him a little tea in her saucer, as she might have done to an animal. The boy thanked her and drank.

"Go and get the donkey ready," said he of the short locks.

The boy was about to go out when down came the master of the house, and greeted him with a blow in the chest that sent him staggering across to the other end of the room.

"What are you standing about for?" he enquired. "I was going to see to the cart," said Stephen when he could speak.

He was eager to go. He preferred the society of the donkey to that of his employers. The donkey was not even given to indulging in the natural propensitities of the quadruped; it may be that all its kicking power was quelled. It was a meek, patient, ill-used brute. Stephen loved it.

He went into the yard, which had a sort of rough shed for stabling. Anything he could do to speed the departure of the gentlemen in the parlour made him. oblivious of cold.

Mr. Wiltshire ate an incredibly large breakfast in an incredibly short space of time, and managed to put in considerable abuse of his son and his wife and the meal. Then with his red face redder than before, le rose. "Now," he said, "I'm goin' to shut you up."

66

"Oh, Josiah,” cried the woman, "not to-day."

"I'm a goin' to shut you up," said her husband, "or you'll be indulging in that little vice of yours, and the house 'll catch fire and all the valuable stock be burnt."

"Oh, I won't touch a drop," pleaded the wretched creature. 66 Josiah, don't, don't do it. It's so dreary." "I'm a goin' to shut you up,” cried the bully. "Now, no nonsense. Up you go."

It was in vain for her to plead. His love of cruelty was stronger than her fear of it.

He forced her up the stairs to her bedchamber. Then he locked the door on the outside. Josiah, junior, gave him a piece of board which was nailed across the means of egress for a further safeguard.

Mr. Wiltshire never let his wife go out of his power, except in the summer when she went hopping. Why she ever returned to him is a mystery, but, for some reason, perhaps because she still had some sort of love for him, and absence made the heart grow fonder, she always did return. Then, if she gave way to the sin to which his unkindness had driven her, this is how he would punish her. He left her the whole day, and sometimes part of the night, locked in her room like a naughty child.

No one ever came to the shop to buy anything, so that it was of no consequence if it were empty. Besides, there was Stephen. Sometimes either Josiah or his father would remain at home, occasionally both. It was not every day in the week that they went in the donkey cart to purchase rags and bones and bottles and cast-off finery.

This morning, however, they departed, both of them, and Stephen was left temporarily monarch of all he surveyed. It was because he was so much alone that existence was tolerable to him. Even if he were detained in the wretched house he was at least able to enjoy his own society, and occasionally, especially when Mrs. Wiltshire was not there to interfere with his movements, he escaped and wandered out into the happier world of the streets.

He did so this morning. There was a certain favourite spot of his, and he found his way to it. It looked a melancholy place enough, but some of Stephen's happiest moments had been passed there. It was just by a muddy slope at the end of a narrow street leading to the river, where was to be found a disused crane that had probably been the property of some engineering firm in the neighbourhood. If one climbed to the top of this crane one looked straight ahead to the peep of dirty river. Stephen liked to wait and watch, wait and watch, till slowly out of the mist would come a boat, stealing on his sight for a moment, then pass as slowly by and mysteriously vanish. Whence it came and whither it went he knew not, only it silently passed from nothingness to nothingness, or so it seemed to him. The thrill of seeing it emerge and the interest of watching it gradually vanish, though a short-lived joy, gave him a distinct consciousness of pleasure.

And he thought of many things on this watch-tower of his wondered about the mystery of his own poor little existence, whence he came and whither he was tending.

He was usually supposed to be half-witted, but he was not; he was only crushed. He was full of strange thoughts and longings that no one knew anything about. He was capable of devotion, but, except the long-suffering donkey, there was no creature on whom he could lavish affection. It had not always been so. He had been an orphan for half the years of his life, but he could just remember his mother. He did not know how it was he came to belong to the Wiltshires, except that his mother had died there. Perhaps if she had lived longer she would have found him another home. She had been unlike anybody else. Perhaps what glorified her in his thoughts was that she had been gentle to him, had loved him. Some one-he did not know who-had told him when she died that she had gone to be with God, and his idea of God thenceforward was of a Kind Person who was taking care of his mother. He seldom thought of

them apart. He asked his mother now, as he often asked her, if she would remind God about him, so that he might be taken away from the rag and bone shop, and maybe go to her.

"She must want me with her," thought Stephen; "she always did, I think. And she cried when she went away from me."

By-and-by he slid down and walked home. He did not dare to stay out too long for fear of punishment, should he be wanted. When the men were at home, Stephen did not venture to stray off the premises, but he was not afraid of Mrs. Wiltshire, except when she was not sober. At such times he was

"So am I," said the child.

Mrs. Wiltshire used some forcible language.

"Don't you dare touch a morsel," she shouted then, "or I'll break every bone in your body; but let me out. and you shall eat till you burst."

"What'll the master say? Ma'am, I'm frightened." "The master! He'll be glad enough to get his victuals without askin' questions. I'll pay you out just as bad as ever he could if you leave me here."

glad to hide from her, for her language was anything but choice, and the weight of her hand terrible.

He looked into the parlour, but saw no sign of her. He was sorry, as he wanted some dinner, and if he took it there would be dire consequences. The remains of the breakfast were there, and tempted him sorely. But he was strong-minded. He thought he would clear away the things and help to put the room in some sort of order. This took him a good while. The men might be expected at any minute. Sometimes they were out till quite late; on other occasions they returned early in the afternoon.

Stephen was in doubt. He was between Scylla and Charybdis. Meanwhile he was conscious of hunger, and Mrs. Wiltshire's release would mean a meal; and his master might beat him in any case. He could better stand the flogging if he were fed.

"All right!" he cried.

Then he fetched the axe and the key, and the prisoner

came out.

She did not thank Stephen, but she stalked down the stairs and into the kitchen. By-andby she gave the boy bread and meat, and he rejoiced in this substantial proof of her gratitude.

But she did not eat herself. She threw a shawl over her shoulders and strode through the shop and out into the street. Then Stephen's heart misgave him, and well it might.

Fear almost put an end to his appetite, but knowing by bitter experience that good meals were not always forthcoming, he managed to finish what was on his plate.

The minutes passed. Mrs. Wiltshire did not return. Stephen wandered from the parlour to the shop, and from the shop to the parlour. Suddenly when standing at the shop door he descried a donkey cart in the distance. He knew it. The master would be home before the mistress, and Mrs. Wiltshire's punishment would fall on him. He fled up the stairs and took refuge in the miserable garret where the rats reigned supreme, but where he was granted an old mattress and a blanket, and where through sheer weariness he nightly forgot the troubles and trials of existence.

He waited trembling. He heard the voices of Josiah