In a close little room, in a narrow little street of a large town, poor Mrs. Lee, pale and worn, and rather acid, was scraping bread and butter for her children’s breakfast, and doling out cups of watery tea. Five young ones, of various ages, hungry and untidy, sat expectant round the table. Two places were still vacant; one, the father’s, as you might guess from the two letters awaiting him there, and the other for the eldest son, who helped his father in the workshop. In that shop father and son had been already hard at work for a couple of hours, stuffing an otter which had been brought in the day before. Now the two came in; the father keen-eyed but sad-looking, the son a big bold lad, the hope of an unlucky family. Mr. Lee sat down and opened one of the two letters. As he read it, his face grew dark, and his wife watched him anxiously. “Not an order, Stephen?” she asked. “O yes, it’s an order,” he said bitterly; “a very nice order. It’s an order to pay up the rent, or quit these premises. Twenty pounds, and arrears five pounds ten. Where am I to get twenty-five pounds just now, I should like to know? Look at the jobs we’ve had all this last winter, barely enough to feed these little beggars, let alone their clothes. A few miserable kingfishers, and a white stoat or two, and such-like vermin. This otter was a godsend, and I shall only get a guinea for it. There’s Lord —— gone round the world, and no orders from him: and young Rathbone killed by the Boers, and no one with any money to spare, or this fellow wouldn’t be pressing so. I tell you, Susan, I don’t know how to pay it.” “Well, don’t pay it,” she said; “it’s not worth paying for. Take a house in Foregate Street, where people can see you, if you want to get on; I’ve told you so again and again. You’ll never get new customers in this slum.” “I like to pay my debts,” he answered slowly, “and the workshop here is good. But there’s one advantage in Foregate Street, Susan: it’s nearer the workhouse!” “Don’t talk nonsense before the children, Stephen. What’s the other letter?” “I don’t know the hand,” he said, fingering it as he drank his tea. “I daresay it’s an offer to make me chief stuffer to the British Museum, or—Hallo!” All eyes were fixed upon him; his teacup descended with a rattle into the saucer. The mother got up and came to look over his shoulder. And this was the letter:— London, _April 15, 1901_.