home and the piano were sold up, and I soon found eighteen shillings a week did not go far with four hungry children to clothe and feed, and rent beside. I tried to get back in my old profession, but I had been out of it too long, no one would look at me, and I could only get cooking and charing to do--very exhausting work when you haven't been brought up to it. At first I got the money pretty regular, but lately it has been more and more uncertain, some weeks only eight or ten shillings, and sometimes missing altogether. He owes me now a matter of twenty pound or more, and last week I braced myself up and determined to do what I could to recover it. If it was only myself, I'd manage, but, work hard as I can, I can't keep the five of us, and it has about broke my heart lately to hear the children crying with hunger and cold. Mrs. Robins, where I used to work, died a fortnight ago, and I shan't find any one like her again. When one of the ladies goes, it is a job to get another, so many poor creatures are after the charing and cleaning. The Rev. Walker has been a good friend to me, but he says I ought to go into the House. 'A man ought to support his wife and children,' he says, 'and I hope as they'll catch him,' he says." "'Yes,' I says, but it is awful to go into the House when we haven't done anything wrong, and my father an organist.' "'Very cruel, Mrs. Blake,' he says, 'but I see no other way. I will write to the Guardians to ask if they will allow you out-relief, but I fear they will say you are too destitute!' "And now, Mrs. Wells, we had better be starting. I hope if they find him I shall be able to pay up the back rent; the table and chairs left I hope you will keep towards the payment of the debt. Thank you for all your kindness." "All right, Mrs. Blake, don't you worry about that, my dear. Wells is in good work, thank God, and I don't miss a few 'apence. I'm such a one for children, and your H'albert is a beauty, he is; I've been right glad to give them a bite and sup now and again. I know children sent out with empty stomachs aren't in a fit state to absorb learning; it leads to words and rows with the teachers and canings afore the day's over. I can't abear to see people cross with children, and I'd do anything to save them the cane. Well, I hope, my dear, as they'll soon nail that beauty of yours, and that we shall see you back again. Perhaps I ought to tell you that a chap calling 'isself a sanitary inspector called this morning to say as five people mustn't sleep in the top-back floor. I told 'im as the room was let to a widow lady in poor circumstances, and was he prepared to guarantee the rent of two rooms. That made him huffy. It wasn't his business, he said, but overcrowding was agen his Council's rules." And the old lady held up the document upside down and then consigned it to the flames. "There will be no overcrowding to night," said Mrs. Blake bitterly.