But when I see them and know their circumstances, see their persistent endurance and their indomitable perseverance, I marvel! And in spite of the oppression they suffer I know that these women are exhibiting qualities that the world sadly needs, and are showing a type of heroism for which the world is bound to be ultimately the better. Poor brave old women! how I respect you! I venerate you! for the only hope that touches your heart is the hope that you may keep out of the workhouse, and be buried without parochial aid. Poor brave old women! I never enter one of your rooms without at once realizing your brave struggle for existence. I never see you sitting at your everlasting machines without realizing your endless toil, and I never see your Industrial Life Assurance premium-book lying ready for the collector without realizing that the two pennies that are ready also are sorely needed for your food. Poor brave old souls! how many times when your tea-canister has been quite empty, and 4.30 in the afternoon has come, and the collector has not yet called, have you been tempted to spend those pennies and provide yourself with a cup of tea? How many times have you picked up the pennies? how many times have you put them down again? for your horror of a parish funeral was too strong even for your love for a cup of tea! Brave old women! is there a stronger, more tragical, temptation than yours? I know of none. Esau sold his birthright for a tasty morsel, well fed as he was; but you will not surrender your "death right"--nay, not for a cup of tea, for you are made of better stuff than Esau. So you go without your tea; but your burial money is not imperilled. Yes, it takes some moral courage to resist such a temptation; but there is no glamour about it: the world knows not of it; nevertheless, it is an act of stern self-repression, an act of true heroism. Shame upon us that it should be required! glory to us that it is forthcoming! What a life of heroism a poor woman has lived for that ten, twenty, or forty years, who, in spite of semi-starvation, has resisted the temptation to spend her burial money! Those few pounds so hardly saved are as fragrant as the box of costly ointment poured upon the Master's feet, and convey the same sentiment, too, for their brave old souls respect their poor old bodies, and against their day of burial they do it! It may be a mean ambition, but of that I am by no means sure; still, it is better than none, for poor, desolate, and Godforsaken must the old woman be who does not cherish it. Poorer still will the old women be, and more desolate their hearts, when this one ambition disappears, and they are heedless, apathetic, and unconcerned as to how and where their poor old bodies are buried.