There is an old, grey-headed gentleman in thread-bare, shiny clothes, who comes out of his poor lodgings in a mean street daily when it is fine and sits in the park. He brings with him a rusty brown bag that once was black. From that bag he takes soon after midday a little packet containing a slice or two of bread and a small piece of cheese. When he has finished his humble meal he walks to the public drinking-fountain and takes a cup of water. If the society reporter wished to chronicle this midday meal in the "Fashionable Intelligence," this is how he would have to word his paragraph in order to be correct: "Among the company who lunched in Regent's Park to-day was Lord ----------. His lordship is at present occupying one room in Great James Street, Lisson Grove, where he is staying incognito under the name of Mr. Wilson." The old gentleman, who is so poor that he can only afford bread and cheese for lunch--it is his dinner--and one room in Lisson Grove, bears a name as noble as any in the pages of Burke. His ancestral home is one of the show-places of England. But it passed from his family nearly a hundred years ago, when the reverse of fortune came that left a noble house beggared. Lord ---------- is quite alone now. Her ladyship died a year or two ago. She added to the poor little income by shirt-making at home for a West End firm. When her ladyship died his lordship had an income of 10s. a week. This was generously increased to £1 by a relative who was just a little better off. On £1 a week one of England's "old nobility" is passing a peaceful old age. He has always a smile for the little children who play near him in the park. Sometimes when they see him bring out his bread they think he is going to feed the ducks. But he cannot afford to do that. Ducks want such big pieces. But now and then he spares a few crumbs for the sparrows. * * * ** The parish doctor stood by the bedside of a woman who had been brought to the infirmary some days previously from a common lodging-house in the neighbourhood. The woman was dying, but quite conscious. The workhouse-master was with the doctor. "It's an extraordinary story she tells," said the master. "She says she is the Marchioness of ----------." The doctor looked pityingly at the poor creature, who was in the last stage of a fatal disease, and bent down to listen to something she was saying. "It's quite true," she said. "We separated, you know, a good many years ago, and I never saw him afterwards. What was the good? But I should like him to know I'm dying--if you can find him." The doctor, hearing the name of the nobleman, remembered something of the story. He went away and made inquiries, which resulted in his being able to find the dying woman's husband.