thieves who had stripped the house of all its
lead, &c. The first answer to her letter in
the Times which Mrs. Gladstone received,
was an autograph letter from the King of the
Belgians with a donation of fifty pounds; but
the Home was really begun in faith, without
a penny being actually subscribed.

It was opened for thirty beds, and even
in the short time it has been at work it has
done an immense amount of good. Good
food, good nursing, and pure air, work
wonders with those the root of whose
malady has been want and impure
conditions of living. One woman went out in
a week; two little children, who were
carried in on Saturday night unable to
walk through weakness, were playing about
on Thursday when we went down, as bright
and lively as if nothing had been the matter
with them. The whole family to which these
children belong, save one out at work, had
been down in the fever; father, a consumptive
shoemaker, mother, and six children.
The fever had been brought into the family
through one of the children playing in an
infected house. One of the children is in
Victoria Park Hospital, four are at Clapton,
and the fifth will come there when the boils,
with which he is at present afflicted, are a
little healed. This family is fearfully poor,
but has struggled hard to keep respectable
and off the parish. They have always
contrived, they say, with a flush of honest
pride, to have one meal a day; and if they
have had no food in the morning, they have
worked for it and earned it, by night. None
of the children can read or write; they all
"help father" so soon as their little hands
can sew or punch; and they are made
practical, poor little souls! rather than
literate. One patient, a law stationer, was
quite a smart-looking young man, though
absolutely penniless and friendless. When
he first came in, he was the only male
patient, and as all the men are in one house
by themselves, and the women in the other
by themselves, he was moped and low-
spirited. So they sent for a companion for
him, and got a painter, crippled with gouty
rheumatism, with small cannon-balls on his
finger joints which he rapped as
unconcernedly as if they had been made of iron;
a douce fatherly man, who had been nine
times in St. George's Hospital, and who took
his troubles with almost Mohammedan
resignation. Patients, however, are received
from their own homes as well as from
hospitals; and admission is absolutely free,
both to the sender and the patient.

The Homes are touching in their
simplicity and home-like character.
Everything is done in the quietest and most
unostentatious manner; one servant does all
the cooking and general work of both houses:
the convalescents helping, so far as to make
their own beds, wash up the plates, &c.
The cook and the lady are the sole working
staff. We stayed late enough for evening
prayers, and went with the rest. It was
Christmas-eve, and the patients had adorned
the walls with wreaths of holly and floral
emblems. An officer had given the lights,
and the lady herself read the prayers and
led the hymn as in any private family. We
shall not easily forget the effect of that quiet
family prayer; with these poor people, men,
women, and children, who had just been
rescued from death and landed for a little
while in comfort and purity; with the clear
voice of the lady reading, and the picture
she made as she stood by her small desk in
her soft grey dress; with the solemn hush
and reverence of the little congregation.
It was a truly Christian Christmas- eve.

If the two small houses at Clapton show
the beauty of family simplicity, Woodford
Hall has the value of a more important
sphere; though here, also, the spirit of
family life is sought after, and the patients
are taught to regard the place as a home, and
to secure friends in the management who
will look after them in time of need. The
Hall was originally the property of a
local magnate, and is quite an institutional
place: with an air of old-fashioned magnificence
pervading it throughout, and with
plenty of room both in chambers and
corridors. It has quite a wilderness of offices
below, including the place where was once
a plunging bath. At first the neighbourhood
got up some opposition to the
establishment of a Convalescent Home in it,
though it had been expressly stated all along
that no fevers or infectious cases were to be
admitted. People living near, apparently
thought that broken arms and legs, and
general debility from want, rheumatism
and the like, were catching: even those
whose position in the religious world (so
called) might have taught them better,
joined in the senseless cry. But Mrs.
Gladstone and her convalescents went on
their way quietly and firmly; and by degrees
the opposition has been lived down, the
neighbours have got over their repugnance,
and the Home has thriven, and its work
has prospered.

What must strike every one who
has seen these Homes, is the wonderful
power of self-sacrifice they have called
out in those who have interested
themselves in them. Women, young, well-born,