Returning to the little shop mentioned in my last--the "little provision shop," where there was nothing left to eat--nothing, indeed, of any kind, except one mug of buttermilk, and a miserable remnant of little empty things, which nobody would buy; four or five glass bottles in the window, two or three poor deal shelves, and a doleful little counter, rudely put together, and looking as if it felt, now, that there was nothing in the world left for it but to become chips at no distant date. Everything in the place had a sad, subdued look, and seemed conscious of having come down in the world, without hope of ever rising again; even the stript walls appeared to look at one another with a stony gaze of settled despair. But there was a clean, matronly woman in the place, gliding about from side to side with a cloth in her hands, and wiping first one, then another, of these poor little relics of better days in a caressing way. The shop had been her special care when times were good, and she clung affectionately to its ruins still. Besides, going about cleaning and arranging the little empty things in this way looked almost like doing business. But, nevertheless, the woman had a cheerful, good- humoured countenance. The sunshine of hope was still warm in her heart; though there was a touch of pathos in the way she gave the little rough counter another kindly wipe now and then, as if she wished to keep its spirits up; and in the way she looked, now at the buttermilk mug, then at the open door, and then at the four glass bottles in the window, which had been gazed at so oft and so eagerly by little children outside, in the days when spice was in them. . . . The husband came in from the little back room. He was a hardy, frank-looking man, and, like his wife, a trifle past middle age, I thought; but he had nothing to say, as he stood there with his wife, by the counter side. She answered our questions freely and simply, and in an uncomplaining way, not making any attempt to awaken sympathy by enlarging upon the facts of their condition. Theirs was a family of seven--man, wife, and five children. The man was a spinner; and his thrifty wife had managed the little shop, whilst he worked at the mill. There are many striving people among the factory operatives, who help up the family earnings by keeping a little shop in this way. But this family was another of those instances in which working people have been pulled down by misfortune before the present crisis came on. Just previous to the mills beginning to work short time, four of their five children had been lying ill, all at once, for five months; and, before that trouble befell them, one of the lads had two of his fingers taken off, whilst working at the factory, and so was disabled a good while. It takes little additional weight to sink those whose chins are only just above water; and these untoward circumstances oiled the way of this struggling family to the ground, before the mills stopped. A few