‘It do seem strange, sir, as nor he nor Doctor Grimes ‘ull let her have anything to put a bit of flesh on her, nothin’ but them messy things as he brings--milk an’ that. An’ the beef jelly--lor! such a trouble! Missis Elsmere, he tells my wife, strains all the stuff through a cloth, she do; never seed anythin’ like it, nor my wife neither. People is clever nowadays,’ said the speaker dubiously. Langham realized, that in this quarter of his parish at any rate, his friend’s pastoral vanity, if he had any, would not find much to feed on. Nothing, to judge from this specimen at least, greatly affected an inhabitant of Mile End. Gratitude, responsiveness, imply health and energy, past or present. The only constant defence which the poor have against such physical conditions as those which prevailed at Mile End is apathy. As they came down the dilapidated steps at the cottage door, Robert drew in with avidity a long draught of the outer air. ‘Ugh!’ he said, with a sort of groan, ‘that bedroom! Nothing gives one such a sense of the toughness of human life as to see a child recovering, actually recovering, in such a pestilential den! Father, mother, grown up son, girl of thirteen, and grandchild--all huddled in a space just fourteen feet square. Langham!’ and he turned passionately on his companion, ‘what defence can be found for a man who lives in a place like Murewell Hall, and can take money from human beings for the use of a sty like that?’ ‘Gently, my friend. Probably the Squire, being the sort of recluse he is, has never seen the place, or at any rate not for-years, and knows nothing about it!’ ‘More shame for him!’ ‘True in a sense,’ said Langham, a little dryly; ‘but as you may want hereafter to make excuses for your man, and he may give you occasion, I wouldn’t begin by painting him to yourself any blacker than need be.’ Robert laughed, sighed, and acquiesced. ‘I am a hot-headed, impatient kind of creature at the best of times,’ he confessed. ‘They tell me that great things have been done for the poor round here in the last twenty years. Something has been done, certainly. But why are the old ways, the old evil neglect and apathy, so long, so terribly long in dying! This social progress of ours we are so proud of is a clumsy limping jade at best!’