are evidences of the beautifying effects of care
and how, on even three shillings a week, a
woman can, if so minded, keep her children
wholesome—-and something more. It will be a
painful thing if the poor little ones are forced to
go into the workhouse on the mother's death;
which seems to be only too certain. Though
the legal and recognised asylum for the helpless
poor, the shadow of that grim House is, somehow,
unfavourable to those living under it; and
the very name of "Workhouse apprentice"
tells against the future of a girl. But perhaps
if the dark hour comes, some one will be found
to befriend them, and procure them admission
into an orphan asylum, such as the Wanstead
Asylum, say, where they may be taught the best
duties of women, and how to earn an honourable
independence when the time of work
comes.

All sorts of faces and characters sit round
that long narrow table; the squalid and the
cared for, as we have seen, though none are as
beautifully neat as our two young friends here
—-the beautiful and the plain, the timid, not
daring to look up, and answering in a whisper
when spoken to, and the bold, innocent of the
first dawnings of class-reverence, the nervous and
the stolid, the keen look of conscious hunger—-
God help them!—-and the deadened look of
creatures who, by the brutalisation of poverty,
have never attained the full use of their faculties.
Some come half famished, and are scarcely to
be satisfied; but, after a short course of sufficing
"dinings-out," the wolfish hunger is appeased,
and the appetite becomes more natural and
healthy. Others cannot eat much at the first.
The digestive powers, like the body, are half
starved for want of use, and it is only by degrees
and carefully that the stomach can be made able
to receive the ordinary amount of food. This
is a sadder thing to see than the wolfish hunger;
telling, as it does, of depressed vital functions
and organs absolutely undeveloped through
privation.

Then the dresses are as much matters of study
as the faces, and almost as eloquent. There
are some with the well-known dash of finery
among their rags—-battered hats with faded
ribbons, crumpled flowers, and feathers that seem
to have been lately swept through the gutter—-
crinolines made of barrel-hoops distending
ragged frocks fit only for the paper-mill—-beads
and wretched tags of torn lace—-the dirt and
finery of so many small savages. Some are
almost like little gentlefolks, with their short
frocks and white stockings, faultless collars
and spruce knickerbockers. One little open-
faced curly-headed rascal was quite lovely enough
to be the model of one of E. V. B.'s exquisite
Germanised children; another sturdy hero—-a
future Nelson perhaps—-had a smart shining
sailor's cap and a short round jacket, which
made him not unlike a Dutch skipper in miniature;
another quaint mannikin wore a queer
little black skull-cap, with a laughable likeness
to a small Dousterswivel or a learned professor
of abstruse science partial to close head-gear.
Some were rough and unpolished, eating with
their fingers and left hands when not watched;
and some had the peculiar air and manner of
Sunday-school children—-the curtsey, the apt
reply, the better look, the manner of society in
fact, as evident with them as with their little
sisters of a higher grade, when trimmed and
polished by careful teaching and good practice.
Older girls chaperoned quite little baby ones,
and took care of them with that sweet assumption
of motherliness which is one of the prettiest
sights among young children. Shy strangers
sat in childish awkwardness, unaccustomed to
place, and ways, and circumstances, but taking
to the initiation kindly enough.

Thus, when dinner was done—-and, as has
been said, all had as much as they would—-grace
was said, and the little folks, filing out in order,
turned up their young faces to the lady and
said "Good morning" to her kindly adieu, the
boys describing with their hands that wonderful
arc which does duty for a bow, and the girls
dropping curtseys. There were fifty-seven children
on that day of our visit, and fifty invalid
adult tickets came in. It was on a Thursday,
and Thursday is always the more thronged of
the two days for the children's dinners; Sunday's
better food remaining as a reminiscence that
should stay Monday's appetites, think the parents,
perhaps; and the district visitors and others who
have tickets to give away not getting fairly into
the swing of their work in time for the hour of
announcement. For all tickets must be sent in
before nine o'clock in the morning, that it may
be known how much meat it is necessary to
cook for the day, everything being done and
arranged by the busy matron and her one
servant between nine and twelve o'clock. The
best plan is to ante-date the tickets for several
days' food, and then the matron has her work
before her, and knows what she is about, and
what she has to provide for.

This, then, was the pictorial aspect of the
charity, as we may say; the working part, the
backbone of principle and moral object, is of a
graver character.

The co-operation of the poor in their own
advancement and well-being, and not only
almsgiving even where almsgiving is so much needed,
is the comer-stone of this dinner-table
scheme—-a scheme not merely eleemosynary and
by no means tending to pauperisation, but
being simply great help on the terms of a little
done by the poor themselves to meet the efforts
of others. But this little, trifling as it is compared
to the amount given (twopence from each
adult—-the cost of dinner averaging eightpence
and a penny from each child—-the cost of
dinner averaging fourpence-halfpenny), yet lifts
the charity to the rank of a self-helping institution
in the minds of the poor, and prevents that
lazy dependence on others which is just the curse
clinging to benevolence. These twopences and
pennies pay for the house and attendance; the
dinners are met by the sale of the tickets and by
donations. The full amount of the subscriptions
is spent on food, and if a larger number of people