These old ladies have left their homes to be tended here among the children. With the littles ones they do not attract much attention. It is only when you look at them closely you see that they are not children themselves. The dwarfs who are bom in well-to-do families are not put away; they remain part of the family circle. But because of their presence in it, there is frequently restraint in the matter of acquaintanceship. The dwarf, always intelligent, frequently gentle and affectionate, is loved as dearly as any of the healthy children who thrive and grow. But that it may be spared pain and the pitying glance the home is not as other homes. The "secret," if not guarded, is not obtruded. There is one member of the family who is not seen by the ordinary visitor, who does not take his or her meals at the table when visitors are under the roof. Even in humbler homes there are sometimes mysteries. There are those who are loved and cared for who never leave the house in the daytime, but see what little of the world may be permitted them after nightfall. You may sometimes see a woman so closely veiled that her features are indistinguishable being led along the Embankment by the river in the dusk of a summer's evening. The story of that veiled woman is a heartrending one. She was a beautiful girl and about to be married to the man she loved when a woman mad with jealousy flung vitriol in her face. Her life was saved, but it would have been almost better had she died. From that hour only her mother has looked upon her face. From the rest of the world it is mercifully veiled. Sometimes the secret chamber hides not a misfortune, but a crime. There is an insanity of criminality which delights in the torture of the weak, the suffering, the mentally deficient. Now and again the world is startled by the narrative of secret cruelty practised on helpless children, of an afflicted wife kept as a prisoner neglected and ill-treated. There have been cases in which the presence in a house of one of these victims of monstrous cruelty has remained unsuspected for years. The secret of the "prisoner" has only been revealed by an accident. Not long ago the mystery of a secret chamber in a humble house in a poor street in Hoxton was discovered. The school-board officer goes to every house and enters every home in order to see that the children are attending school. In this home there was no child ever to be discovered. But the officer had information that a little girl of eight was undoubtedly a member of the family. One night, "in consequence of information received," as the police say, he kept watch, and at nine o'clock he saw the mother come out of the house cautiously, look around, and then return to emerge with a little girl. The officer, who had taken precautions against recognition, followed, and then the mystery was solved.