'He is on a job somewhere, and cannot come home; they must have bread to eat, and he must work. This is the house,' pointing to a low white cottage at the end of a long straggling street of similar houses; two or three untidy-looking children were playing in the front garden with some oyster-shells and a wooden horse without a head. One little white-headed urchin clapped his hands when he saw Mr. Hamilton, and a pretty little girl with a very dirty face ran up to him and clasped him round the knee. ''As 'oo any pennies to-day?' she lisped. 'No nonsense; run away, children,' he said, in a rough voice that did not in the least alarm them, for they scampered after us into the porch until an elder girl, with a year-old baby in her arms, met us on the threshold and scolded them away. Mr. Hamilton shook a big stick at them. 'I shall give no pennies to children with dirty faces. Well, Peggy, how is mother? Have the boys gone to school, both of them? That is right. This is the lady who is coming to look after mother.' Here Peggy dropped a courtesy, and said, 'Yes, sir,' and 'yes please, mum.' 'Mind you do all she tells you. Now out of my way. I want to speak to your grandmother a moment, and then I will come into the other room.' I followed him into the untidy, miserable looking kitchen. An old woman was sitting by the fire with an infant in her arms; we found out that it belonged to the neighbour who was washing out some things in the yard. She came in by and by, clattering over the stones in her thick clogs,--a brisk, untidy-looking young woman,--and looked at me curiously as she took her baby. 'I must be going home now, granny,' she said, in a loud, good-humoured voice. 'Peggy can rinse out the few things I've left.' Granny had a pleasant, weather-beaten face, only it looked sunken and pale, and the poor blind eyes had a pathetic, unseeing look in them. To my surprise, she looked neat and clean. I had yet to learn the slow martyrdom the poor soul had endured during the last few months in that squalid, miserable household. To her, cleanliness was next to godliness. She had brought up a large family well and thriftily, and now in her old age and helplessness her life had no comfort in it. I was rather surprised to see Mr. Hamilton shake the wrinkled hand heartily. 'Well, Elspeth, what news of your son? Is he likely to come home soon?' 'Nay, doctor,' in a faint old treble: 'Andrew cannot leave his job for two or three months to come. He is terrible down-hearted about poor Mary. Ay, she has been a good wife to him and the bairns; but look at her now! Poor thing! Poor thing!' 'We must all dree our weird. You are a canny Scotch-woman, and know what that means. Come, you must cheer up, for I have brought a young lady with me who is going to put your daughter-in-law a little more comfortable and see after her from time to time.'