grandmothers had done, and to earn a pardon for their misdeeds, that she could deny nothing to her poor. The almshouses formed a square of tiny cottages, with a large garden in the midst, which absorbed more plants, the gardener said, than all the gardens at Whiteladies. The entrance from the road was through a gateway, over which was a clock-tower; and in this part of the building were situated the pretty, quaint little rooms occupied by the chaplain. Right opposite, at the other end of the garden, was the chapel; and all the houses opened upon the garden which was pretty and bright with flowers, with a large grassplot in the midst, and a fine old mulberry tree, under which the old people would sit and bask in the sunshine. There were about thirty of them, seven or eight houses on each side of the square--a large number to be maintained by one family; but I suppose that the first Austins had entertained a due sense of their own wickedness, and felt that no small price was required to buy them off. Half of these people at least, however, were now at Miss Augustine’s charges. The endowment, being in land, and in a situation where land rises comparatively little in value, had ceased to be sufficient for so large a number of pensioners--and at least half of the houses had been left vacant, and falling into decay in the time of the late Squire and his father. It had been the enterprise of Miss Augustine’s life to set this family charity fully forth again, according to the ordinance of the first founder--and almost all her fortune was dedicated to that and to the new freak of the chantry. She had chosen her poor people herself from the village and neighborhood, and perhaps on the whole they were not badly chosen. She had selected the chaplain herself, a quaint, prim little old man, with a wife not unlike himself, who fitted into the rooms in the tower, and whose object in life for their first two years had been to smooth down Miss Augustine, and keep her within the limits of good sense. Happily they had given that over before the time at which this story commences, and now contented themselves with their particular mission to the old almspeople themselves. These were enough to give them full occupation. They were partly old couples, husband and wife, and partly widows and single people; and they were as various in their characteristics as every group of human persons are, “a sad handful,” as old Mrs. Tolladay said. Dr. Richard and his wife had enough to do, to keep them in order, what with Miss Augustine’s vagaries, and what with the peculiarities of the Austin pensioners themselves.