Lady -------- had some trouble about references, but, confiding in an old friend who knew of her qualifications, she got over the difficulty. In her first situation she was uncomfortable, and after three months she left. But, fortified with a reference, she obtained a situation in a good family. There it more than once happened that Lady -------- cooked for people who had been guests at her own table in her husband's lifetime. They would have been considerably astonished had they known that their former hostess was acting in the capacity of paid cook in the kitchen of the house in which they were dining. A break-down in health compelled Lady -------- to give up her situation. It was after her recovery--the little she had been able to save by hard work swallowed up in the expenses of her illness--that she came to me, hoping I might put her in the way of getting some articles she had written on "Cooking for Ladies" accepted by a newspaper. When I last heard of Lady -------- she was going out to cook on what I believe is called "the job." ***** Here is a little tobacconist's shop in the suburbs. The customers who enter it daily for their cigars and tobacco, sometimes for a box of lights, and see a neatly dressed lady, who is the proprietress, behind the counter, have not the slightest idea that the lady who supplies them with their packets of cigarettes and ounces of tobacco has a "handle to her name," that her husband is the heir to an earldom, and that in due course the fair tobacconist who is keeping a little shop for a livelihood will have a right to, sit among the peeresses of England as the Countess of ----------. In the environs of London there is a comely old lady who lives in the lodge on a great estate. Sometimes she comes out and opens the park gate that the occupants of a magnificent carriage may drive up to the Hall, which is their residence. The residents at the Hall are wealthy Americans. The old lady is the widow of the former owner. It was the home of his ancestors for three centuries. To the Hall he brought her as a bride to be its mistress. Now she is the lodge-keeper. Her husband before he died was employed as a coachman to a-wealthy City merchant. It was this merchant who recommended the widow to the Americans as a trustworthy woman to have the lodge. Even the descendants of kings come upon evil times and bring the Crown of England into the romance of poverty. The sexton of a West End church was one of the co-heirs to the barony in a famous peerage claim concerning which evidence was given before the House of Lords. This gentleman, who followed the humble occupation of a grave-digger, was entitled to quarter the Royal Arms. His direct descent from Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, fifth son of Edward III, was undisputed. A barefooted, ragged little lad playing in a back court in Wapping is the descendant of the O'Neills, the scion of a race of kings renowned in Irish history.