which had the bare ground for floor with a few
large round pebbles in it; the family living-room
I conjecture to be below the larger bedroom up
the step-ladder. She replies that most likely
that scullery is larder and pantry and all, but
bids me inquire the next time I go, " for," adds
she, "I can't abide waste, and if Willie's mother
can't keep things as they should be kept, she'd
better have 'em little by little every day as he
wants 'em. I should like to see how she means
to manage them calf's-feet."

A few days later, I visit Willie again, and,
waiting at the open door, I look round and suppose
my servant's conjecture about this scullery
being also pantry to be correct, for, besides the
pots and pans on the floor, there are a few basins
and dishes on a shelf. Before my survey is completed,
Willie's mother appears from the dwelling-room,
and to my satisfaction I hear that
he is down stairs for the first time, to-day. I
am accordingly ushered across the scullery and
into the kitchen, where he is sitting on a stool
within a deep chintz valance, which hangs where
a mantelpiece is commonly fixed; for the chimney
is a wide open space; there is no range, no oven,
no boiler, nothing but a handful of fire on the
stones, kept from being scattered about by three
bricks set one upon the other at each side, and
about a foot apart. Fuel is very costly in our
village, and the fire burns slowly; so Willie
crouches down to it, looking much less comfortable
than when he lay in his mother's bed: while
opposite to him, and dead asleep, sits his father,
a powerful man in appearance, who, his wife says
softly, has only just got home after being out all
night leading coals up from the landing to the
store. Willie is no better of his deafness yet,
but he is coming round. O what a painful process
that coming round looks over that starved
scrap of fire!

The room has the same decided features of
cleanliness under difficulties, of neatness, and
attempt at ornament, as the room up the step-
ladder. On a rude deal table, home-made, and by
no skilful carpenter, is the week's washing,
ironed and folded. In the window-sill is the
family library, consisting chiefly of old brown
books, contents unknown, but outwardly of a
religious appearance, with a few plants to give
them an air of liveliness. The floor is paved
with worn uneven stones set in the clay, the walls
are the unplastered walls whitewashed, and as I
look out from the window into the dull day
which has but just ceased raining, I see the
sloppy footpath inclining down to it and all the
water draining off to settle in this moist corner.

I don't like to ask prying questions, but I
should like to know who owns this cottage and
what it costs the family a week. Whatever it
costs in money, it will cost enormously more in
health and strength, and possibly in children's
lives, before its owner will consent to pull it
down as unfit for human habitation—which it is.
But Willie's mother has no complaint to make—
if she says a word, it is of somebody's kindness
—so I suggest no grievance, but quietly convey
myself away, leaving the father still fast asleep.

I have got over the awkwardness of feeling
myself an intruder, and a few days later I am
that way again; but the cabbage garden and the
stones before the door are not decorated any
more with the dots of children enacting ladies.
The outer door stands open, but the inner one is
shut, and, while I stand knocking, I hear a
childish wail of suffering, than which I know no
sound so sad: then the voice of our clergyman,
who is home again, speaking to Willie's mother.
As he comes out, I enter and see Willie, sitting
on his stool under the valance as before, and a
cradle on the stones beside him in which lies
little Robert. Their mother's eyes are red with
weeping or watching, or both, but in answer to
my question if the little one is ill, she only says,
in her natural way, which is neither patient nor
plaintive, but simply acquiescent in what is, as if
she had no idea it either could be or ought to be
otherwise, " Yes, ma'am, he's got the fever too; he
began three days ago." And as the pitiful inarticulate
wail continues, she lifts him in her arms
and holds his curly head against her neck, and
kisses him until it ceases; but he is very bad in
his head, and the great eyes have a very different
expression from what they had when he peeped
round his sister's elbow at my basket.

"I don't get much rest with him at nights,"
his mother tells me, and puts a chair for me to
sit down, and sits down herself, nursing him in
her lap, where he lies quiet enough. Then she
tells me about him, and what the doctor says.
"And don't I see Willie getting on?" He has been
out a minute or two in the sun, but he could not
stand by himself, and his boots are too heavy for his
little thin feet. So I suggest a superannuated pair
of my own, which she says she will be very glad
of; and she defers to me and consults me, and I
know nothing, and feel that I am nothing, beside
her, except that all my speculations and stories
of struggle and suffering are mere shreds and
patches of phantoms compared with her bare
and bitter experience of life.

The two little girls are silently busy at the
table, ironing. I inquire of them if they often
burn their fingers, an idea which they repudiate
with emphatic head-shakings. " It is their doll's
clothes, ma'am; it keeps them quiet and makes
them handy," their mother tells me; on which
they smile, and display some wonderful bits of
rag, the property of a much-abused but probably
much-cherished wooden image now sitting
unclothed on the centre pile of books in the
window-sill. The fire is a little brighter to-day—
perhaps the clergyman brightened it—and Willie
has not quite such a wan and weary look on his
white face. He watches his mother and myself
as we talk, which he never did before, and
though he cannot hear a word, he can raise his
mind, apparently, to guess about what is going
on; and to look on the best side of everything,
perhaps his deafness may be almost a blessing for
a little while, for it will prevent him from being