"It's warm weather now, and we can sleep about on the 'eath a bit. We shan't want much to eat--we're too old." * * * * * A week or so later I heard of the death of old "Inky." He had been found in a half-dying condition on one of the benches on the heath, and had been brought by the police into the infirmary, where he passed away without recovering consciousness. As we "rattled his bones over the stones" to his pauper grave I said a sincere _Laus Deo_ that another man of war had been delivered from poverty and the hated workhouse. A DAUGHTER OF THE STATE Quis est homo, qui non fleret? "No, ma'am, I've never had no misfortune; I'm a respectable girl, I am. Why am I in the workhouse, then? Well, you see, it was like this: I had a very wicked temper, and I can't control it somehow when the mistresses are aggravating, and I runned from my place. I always do run away. No, there was nothing agen the last mistress--it was just my nasty temper. Then I got wandering about the streets, and a policeman spoke to me and took me to a kind lady, and she put me here to prove me, and left me to learn my lesson. She takes great interest in my case. Yes, Matron says it is a disgrace for a strong girl to be on the rates, but what am I to do? I ain't got no clothes and no character, so I suppose I shall always be here now. No, it ain't nice; we never go out nor see nothing--leastways, the young women don't. There's no sweet puddings and no jam. Some of the girls say jail's far better. Yes, I am an orphan--at least, father died when I was very little, and the Board gentlemen put me and my brothers into the schools. No, I never heard any more of them. Mother came to see me at first, but she ain't been nor wrote for five years; perhaps she is dead or married again. No, I don't know how old I am; Matron says she expects about eighteen. Oh, yes, I have been in places. The Board ladies got me my first place at a butcher's, only he was always coming after me trying to kiss me, and the missis did not seem to like it somehow and she cut up nasty to me, and there was words and I went off in a temper. No gentleman! I should think not. A damned low scoundrel I call him. I beg your pardon, ma'am, I know 'damned' isn't a word for ladies. I ain't an ignorant girl, but there's worse said in the Young Women's Room sometimes. Then after that the Salvation Army took me in and found me a place in a boarding-house. Heaps to do I had, and such a lot of glasses and plates and things for every meal. I always got muddled laying the table, and the missis had an awful nasty temper, quite as bad as mine, and one day she blew me up cruel, and I ran away. Then this time some nuns took me to their Home, and there I made a great mistake; I thought it was a Church of England Home, but they was Cartholics. Oh, yes, the nuns were very kind to me--real good ladies--but the lady who takes an interest in my case said as I had made