"Little bread--little water--that's all;" she says again so pitifully; "Let me stay here till I'm gone, and I shan't be long now;" and then sinking back on the bed, she closed her eyes and lay muttering, with her poor thin, bony arms stretched across her breast. I looked at the p'leecemen, and they looked at me, and not being men much given to softness, they were about to lift the poor thing up and carry her down, only I stopped 'em, for there was something about the poor soul then as made me hold up my hand; and when they saw what I did, one of them went down to send away the cab and fetch a doctor, while me and t'other stood looking on to see the look of horror and fear go off her face, while the hands kept their place across her poor breast--to see her eyes stopping shut, then open widely for a minute, and then close again, as she lay quiet and still--gone to sleep to wake elsewhere. P'leeceman went out werry quietly and stopped at the door, beckoning me to come, but I couldn't see him, for I was seeing that poor woman sitting on that broken chair, close to the broken window, in the early morning, and through the long day, and right into the night, by the light of a cheap candle, stitching away at tailor's slopwork hour after hour, to make at first 7 shillings 6 pence a week, then, as her eyes grew feebler, and the stitches less regular, six shillings--five shillings--four shillings--_two shillings_--nothing! for flesh and blood is cheap in London, and when one bone and gristle machine wears out, there are plenty more to take its place. Sitting there in the bitter cold wet autumn of this year, sick at heart, sick in body, weak, old, and helpless--too feeble to work, too proud to tell of her sufferings; and with the horror of the poor against the tender mercies of the parish, where the feeble sink amidst the horrors of the infirmary. Working on till she could work no more, and then, with bloodless limbs and pallid face, when work and food were given, and she took both, the strength failed, and the stomach unused to sustenance could not bear it--the lamp was going out, the flame trembling, and the oil for which it was sinking drowned out the last flickering ray. ------------------------------------------------------------------------