'Into the city--on business,' he added with a smile. 'There will be nobody there so late.' 'Nobody! One would think you were the beadle of a city church, Mr. Gordon.' We came into a very narrow, dirty street. I do not know where it is. A slatternly woman advanced from an open door, and said, 'Mr. Falconer.' He looked at her for a moment. 'Why, Sarah, have you come to this already?' he said. 'Never mind me, sir. It's no more than you told me to expect. You knowed him better than I did. Leastways I'm an honest woman.' 'Stick to that, Sarah; and be good-tempered.' 'I'll have a try anyhow, sir. But there's a poor cretur a dyin' up-stairs; and I'm afeard it'll go hard with her, for she throwed a Bible out o' window this very morning, sir.' 'Would she like to see me? I'm afraid not.' 'She's got Lilywhite, what's a sort of a reader, readin' that same Bible to her now.' 'There can be no great harm in just looking in,' he said, turning to me. 'I shall be happy to follow you--anywhere,' I returned. 'She's awful ill, sir; cholerer or summat,' said Sarah, as she led the way up the creaking stair. We half entered the room softly. Two or three women sat by the chimney, and another by a low bed, covered with a torn patchwork counterpane, spelling out a chapter in the Bible. We paused for a moment to hear what she was reading. Had the book been opened by chance, or by design? It was the story of David and Bathsheba. Moans came from the bed, but the candle in a bottle, by which the woman was reading, was so placed that we could not see the sufferer. We stood still and did not interrupt the reading. 'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed a coarse voice from the side of the chimney: 'the saint, you see, was no better than some of the rest of us!' 'I think he was a good deal worse just then,' said Falconer, stepping forward. 'Gracious! there's Mr. Falconer,' said another woman, rising, and speaking in a flattering tone. 'Then,' remarked the former speaker, 'there's a chance for old Moll and me yet. King David was a saint, wasn't he? Ha! ha!' 'Yes, and you might be one too, if you were as sorry for your faults as he was for his.' 'Sorry, indeed! I'll be damned if I be sorry. What have I to be sorry for? Where's the harm in turning an honest penny? I ha' took no man's wife, nor murdered himself neither. There's yer saints! He was a rum 'un. Ha! ha!' Falconer approached her, bent down and whispered something no one could hear but herself. She gave a smothered cry, and was silent. 'Give me the book,' he said, turning towards the bed. 'I'll read you something better than that. I'll read about some one that never did anything wrong.' 'I don't believe there never was no sich a man,' said the previous reader, as she handed him the book, grudgingly. 'Not Jesus Christ himself?' said Falconer. 'Oh! I didn't know as you meant him.' 'Of course I meant him. There never was another.'