The Squire had not been going on straight himself just then, and had bumped up against a foot-passenger who was hurrying along. It was Pitt, the surgeon. After a few words of greeting, the Squire excused his flurry by telling him where he had come from. "Been _there_!" exclaimed Pitt, bursting into a laugh. "Wish you joy, sir! We call it Benevolence Hall." "And a very good name, too," said the Squire. "Such men ought to be canonized, Pitt." "Hope they will be?" answered Pitt in a curious kind of tone. "I can't stop now, Mr. Todhetley; am on my way to a consultation." "He slips from one like an eel," cried the Squire, looking after the doctor as he hurried onwards: "I might have spoken to him about Mrs. Mapping. But my mind is at ease with regard to her, Johnny, now that these charitable men have the case in hand: and we shall be up again in a few weeks." III. It was nearly two months before we were again in London, and winter weather: the same business, connected with a lawsuit, calling the Squire up. "And now for Mrs. Mapping," he said to me during the afternoon of the second day. So we went to Gibraltar Terrace. "Yes, she is in her room," said Miss Kester in a resentful tone, when she admitted us. "It is a good thing somebody's come at last to see after her! I don't care to have her alone here on my hands to die." "To die!" cried the Squire sharply, supposing the dressmaker spoke only in temper. "What is she dying of?" "Starvation," answered Miss Kester. "Why, what on earth do you mean, ma'am?" demanded he. "Starvation!" "I've done what I could for her, so far as a cup of tea might go, and a bit of bread-and-butter once a day, or perhaps a drop of broth," ran on Miss Kester in the same aggrieved tone. "But it has been hard times with myself lately, and I have my old mother to keep and a bedridden sister. What she has wanted is a supply of nourishing food; and she has had as good as none of any sort since you were here, sir, being too weak to work: and so, rapid consumption set in." She whisked upstairs with the candle, for the short winter day was already closing, and we followed her. Mrs. Mapping sat in an old easy-chair, over a handful of fire, her thin cotton shawl folded round her: white, panting, attenuated, starved; and--there could not be much mistake about it--dying. "Starved? dying? dear, dear!" ejaculated the Squire, backing to the other chair and sitting down in a sort of terror. "What has become of the good people at Benevolence Hall?" "They!" cried Miss Kester contemptuously. "You don't suppose those people would spend money to keep a poor woman from dying, do you, sir?" "Why, it is their business to do it," said the Squire. "I put Mrs. Mapping's case into their hands, and they undertook to see to it."