And how splendidly some of our poor widows' boys rise to their duties! What pluck, endurance, and enterprise they exhibit! Hundreds of such boys, winter and summer alike, rise about half-past four, are at the local dairy at five; they help to push milk-barrows till eight; and with a piece of bread and margarine off they go to school. After school-hours they are at the dairy again, washing the churns and milk-cans. Sharp-witted lads, too. They know how to watch their milk on a dark morning, and how to give evidence, too, when a thief is brought up. For supreme confidence in himself and an utter lack of self-consciousness or nervousness, commend me to these boys. They fear neither police nor magistrate. They are as fearless as they are natural; for adversity and hard work give them some compensation. But their dangers and temptations are many. So I love to think of the lads who have stood the test and have not yielded. I love to think of the gladness of the widow's heart and her pride in the growing manliness of her boy--"So like his father." I was visiting in the heart of Alsatia, and sat beside the bed of a dying youth whose twenty-first birthday had not arrived--which never did arrive. It was but a poor room, not over-clean. From the next room came the sound of a sewing-machine driven furiously, for a widow by its aid was seeking the salvation of herself and children. She was the landlady, and "let off" the upper part of the house. The dying youth was not her son; he belonged to the people upstairs. But the people upstairs were not of much account, for they spent their time largely away from home, and had scant care for their dying son; so the widow had brought his pallet-bed into the little room on the ground-floor wherein I sat, "that I might have an eye on him." There must have been some sterling qualities in the woman, though she was not much to look upon, was poorly clad, and wore a coarse apron over the front of her dress. Her hands were marked with toil and discoloured by leather, for she machined the uppers of women's and children's boots, and the smell of the leather was upon her; but she had a big heart, and though every time "she had an eye on him" meant ceasing her work and prolonging her labour, she could not keep away from him for long periods. But, my! how she did make that machine fly when she got back to it! Blessings on her motherly heart! There was no furniture in the room saving the little box and the chair I occupied. The ceiling was frightfully discoloured, and the walls had not been cleaned for many a day. But a number of oil-paintings without frames were tacked on the walls, and these attracted my attention. Some were very crude, and others seemed to me to be good, so I examined them. They bore no name, but evidently they had been done by the same hand. Each picture bore a date, and by comparing them I could mark the progress of the artist. As I stood looking at them, forgetful of the