“Then go round to the other door, and knock that down too,” replied the woman. “_Eh_, maybe you are one of her husband’s relations. I’ve heard tell he had powerful rich ones.” Mr. Oakly turned away without deigning reply to this half interrogatory. “_Eh_,” she continued, her voice becoming shriller and shriller, “and a plaguy proud set you are, I’ll be bound. You can ride in your coach, can you, and let your brother, as maybe he was, die on straw. _Ho-oo-t!_” she shrieked, her face inflamed with anger, as she found her taunts unnoticed, “_ho-oo-t_ away with you off my door-steps—did you ever hear of Dives and Lazarus? Your gold wont keep _your_ back from scorching, old Dives. Faith I should like to have the basting of you myself!” Saying which she boxed the ears of the nearest unlucky wight who stood grinning with the rest at her eloquence, and then giving him a shake, which nearly sent his head off, she slammed the door, and retreated. Her last words were inaudible to the person they were intended for. Glad to escape from such a virago, he had hastily bent his steps around to the back entrance of the domicil. Here he knocked several times, but as no answer was given, he ventured at length to lift the latch, and enter. It was a low, dark room in which he found himself, little better than a cellar. I fancy it would have been impossible even for those who dwell upon the charms and romance of poverty, and who, with well-fed stomachs, in slippered ease, on Turkey carpets, descant so eloquently upon this theme, to have found aught charming here. The floor was broken and uneven; two low windows, which could only boast of three whole panes between them, the rest being patched with paper, or their places supplied by rags, through which the rain had forced its way, and now trickled in long streams across the floor. There were two chairs, a low bedstead, miserably furnished, a pine table, and some few articles of crockery and cooking utensils of the poorest kind. Upon an old quilt, thrown down upon the floor in one corner of the room, two little children, entwined in each other’s arms, were sleeping. At this sight the knees of Mr. Oakly trembled, his teeth chattered, and for a moment he leaned for support against the wall—for a voice seemed whispering in his ear, “_Look wretch! thy brother’s children—this is thy work!_” And perhaps it will be as well here as elsewhere, here, in the scene of that brother’s death, to relate the events which led to so sad an end.