"The two men, rough, tender nurses as they were, lighted the fire, which smoked and puffed into the room as if it did not know the way up the damp, unused chimney. The very smoke seemed purifying and healthy in the thick clammy air. The children clamoured again for bread; but this time Barton took a piece first to the poor, helpless, hopeless woman, who still sat by the side of her husband, listening to his anxious, miserable mutterings. She took the bread, when it was put into her hand, and broke a bit, but could not eat. She was past hunger. She fell down on the floor with a heavy, unresisting bang. The men looked puzzled. 'She's wellnigh clemmed, (_starved_,)' said Barton. 'Folk do say one musn't give clemmed people much to eat; but, bless us, she'll eat naught.' 'I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Wilson, I'll take these two big lads, as does naught but fight, home to my missis's for to-night, and I will get a jug o' tea. Them women always does best with tea and such slop.' "So Barton was now left alone with a little child, crying, when it had done eating, for mammy, with a fainting, dead-like woman, and with the sick man, whose mutterings were rising up to screams and shrieks of agonized anxiety. He carried the woman to the fire, and chafed her hands. He looked around for something to raise her head. There was literally nothing but some loose bricks: however, those he got, and taking off his coat, he covered them with it as well as he could. He pulled her feet to the fire, which now began to emit some faint heat. He looked round for water, but the poor woman had been too weak to drag herself out to the distant pump, and water there was none. He snatched the child, and ran up the area steps to the room above, and borrowed their only saucepan with some water in it. Then he began, with the useful skill of a working man, to make some gruel; and, when it was hastily made, he seized a battered iron table-spoon, kept when many other little things had been sold in a lot, in order to feed baby, and with it he forced one or two drops between her clenched teeth. The mouth opened mechanically to receive more, and gradually she revived. She sat up and looked round; and, recollecting all, fell down again in weak and passive despair. Her little child crawled to her, and wiped with its fingers the thick-coming tears which she now had strength to weep. It was now high time to attend to the man. He lay on straw, so damp and mouldy no dog would have chosen it in preference to flags; over it was a piece of sacking, coming next to his worn skeleton of a body; above him was mustered every article of clothing that could be spared by mother or children this bitter weather; and, in addition to his own, these might have given as