There were old fellows there who had still about them indications of true comeliness and grace that distinguished them from all vulgar surroundings;—ancient gentlemen, who would go out on wet days to sweep away any rainpools that might lie before the doors of the old ladies, and so besmirch an otherwise immaculate shoe. It should be remembered, too, that there was no livery there. Those who had some one to help them to the garb of gentility wore what pleased them; those who were dependent on the charity for clothing, were neither bound in one pattern, nor condemned to the uniform of poverty. Neat or lively cotton prints, or warm stuff gowns, with proper hose and caps and kerchiefs, for the women; plain Oxford mixture, black, steel grey, or brown, for the men, and each one measured for his suit. Those who entered there were not the recipients of a dole grudgingly conceded. It was no poorhouse, but the "Providence." Only eleven years ago there were some evidences of the old meaning of the place in the remnants of the antique furniture which adorned the queer rooms. They were not wards or dormitories, but veritable bedrooms; and each one had its own peculiarities, {24} even in the bedsteads with spindle posts and dimity hangings, the boxes and cupboards, and special chairs which distinguished it from the rest. Some of these things had evidently been heirlooms either of the institution or of the individual; and, indeed, the preservation of individuality was a cheerful feature of the place, despite its dim and somewhat dreary surroundings. The Board Room was, in its way, one of the most extraordinary apartments in London: with its tables supported by a tangled puzzle of legs, its high-backed, polished chairs with leather seats, worn till they reminded one of the cover of an antique ledger bound in unfinished calf; its wonderful old black-framed prints representing the meetings of the Huguenots in the Clerk's field in the times when men and women carried their lives in their hands, and dragoons rode congregations down and slashed them with sabres as they fell. Its dimly-seen portraits of the noble, broad-browed, dark-eyed Ruvigny (the first governor), who refused to go back to France even at the invitation of the King; of the gentle Pastor Menard, with high, capacious forehead, and calm, strong mien; of hale, shrewd, ruddy Gastigny; and of some men of later date, with Frenchman written in every line of their finely-marked faces. The little room set apart as a chapel—a barely-furnished place enough, with desk and raised platform and plain seats—was venerable because of all the meaning that lay in its studied absence of all ornament, and because of the significance it must once have had to the sad-eyed men who crowded into it, some of them thinking, perhaps, how it had come about that they could stand there in peace and without a hand upon the hilt of a sword.