I wondered what the woman was like, and if she had any idea of the genuine love for her that welled up in this honest fellow's heart. As I watched the tears flow down his grimy face, I couldn't help thinking how many a noble dame would like to know that her absence from the domestic hearth would cause grief as genuine as this. Under the painful circumstances the excuse was accepted; the 'little mother' was allowed a short holiday till the betrayed husband had time to make other arrangements, and he left the room murmuring his thanks and mopping his eyes. 'Mrs. Smith,' calls out the Board official, taking the next case down on the list for hearing, and a young girl of about fifteen, with a baby in her arms and a child of five clinging to her skirts, enters the room and seats herself nervously on the extreme edge of the chair. 'You're not Mrs. Smith, my dear,' says the chairman, with a smile. 'No, sir; that's mother.' 'Oh, you've come for her, eh? These boys, Thomas and Charles, who have been absent for three weeks, are your brothers, I suppose?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Well, my dear, they ought to come, you know. What's the reason?' 'Please, sir, they're at work.' 'But they've not passed the Fourth Standard.' 'I know, sir; but they've got a job, and it's four shillings a week each, and that's all I've got to keep us.' 'All _you've_ got, my dear? Where's your father?' The girl colours a little and hesitates. The School Board officer steps forward to the table and helps her. 'It's a very painful case, sir,' he says. 'The father's been living with another woman--left his family. A fortnight ago the mother met him and asked him for some money. He knocked her down, and she fell and cut her head open. She's in St. Thomas's Hospital--not expected to live. The man was taken up, and he's under remand now, and this girl has to look after the entire family.' 'I see,' says the chairman; 'and Thomas and Charles are giving you their money, eh? and that's all you've got?' 'Yes, sir. I can't work myself, because I've got the baby and the others to look after.' 'Well, my dear,' says the chairman, 'I am very sorry for you, but your brothers can only have half-time or come back to school.' The girl says nothing, she is only fifteen, and can't argue it out with the gentleman--so she curtseys and is ushered out. I wonder, if the mother dies and the father gets a long term of imprisonment, what the fate of the family will be? I have said that the hardships entailed upon the poor by the Education Act are numerous. Let me quote a few statistics gleaned from the papers which I turn over on the chairman's desk by his kind permission. They are cases in which the parents apply to have the fees remitted because they cannot afford to pay them.