“Don’t ’ee take on, my dear,” said Maria, with the same gentle dignity. “It bain’t none o’ your fault. I’m very thankful to ye for what you’ve done.” “When I’m over my trouble I’ll come to see you,” gasped the good hostess, whose face was glazed with ineffectual grief. “They’ll—they’ll take good care of ye there, I’m told; and maybe better times will come, and we can get ’ee out again.” Maria smiled; she knew very well that she would never come out again. “I could wish,” she said presently, “I had some little things to give the childern, Mrs. Andrews, but I’ve nought in the wide world but the clothes on my back, and the rosy plate—and that I can never part with so long as I live. Give it to me,” she said, after a pause, pointing to where her treasure lay safely ensconced in a drawer of the chest in the corner. Mrs. Andrews produced it, but, as she crossed the kitchen towards her friend, Nurse Margaret looked at her meaningly, and slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid they won’t let her keep it,” she said, under her breath. “’Twill fair break her heart if they don’t,” whispered the other. “Do ’ee try an’ persuade ’em, Miss.” The nurse shook her head again, but promised to try; and then Maria was slowly hoisted from her chair, and supported across the kitchen and into the cab. She returned Mrs. Andrews’ farewell embrace, and sat looking before her vacantly as the cab drove away. Nurse Margaret’s surmise proved only too correct; those who passed through the stony portals of the Union found themselves as completely denuded of this world’s gear as though those gates had been in very truth the Gates of Death. Maria possessed a comfortable warm shawl, with which she was accustomed to envelop her chilly old frame when in bed; but she was informed that she could not be allowed to keep it. When this shawl and her warm clothes were taken away from her, and she was clad in the regulation garments, she was told that probably in a week or so a kind lady who visited the Union would knit her a shawl. “But mine be quite good,” said Maria, feebly. “I d’ ’low I’d rather have my own. ’Twouldn’t be the same. My own shawl, d’ye see—” she broke off suddenly, her lip trembling. “Hers is quite clean,” said Nurse Margaret: “could she not be allowed to have it?” Possibly she realised something of what was passing in Maria’s mind: a lingering sense of personal dignity—the last vestige of proud independence; the natural clinging, almost childish in its tenacity, to what was her “very own”. Perhaps there were associations connected with that shawl that made it doubly precious; it might have been an heirloom, it might have been a gift—even if purchased only by the wearer herself out of long and carefully hoarded savings, how much would such a fact add to its value.