e appearance. He had a watch and a chain. Her lodgers were
not so well off, but there was not one of them who was in need of
immediate assistance: the woman who was washing linen in a tub, and who
had been abandoned by her husband and had children, an aged widow without
any means of livelihood, as she said, and that peasant in bast shoes, who
told me that he had nothing to eat that day. But on questioning them, it
appeared that none of these people were in special want, and that, in
order to help them, it would be necessary to become well acquainted with
them.

When I proposed to the woman whose husband had abandoned her, to place
her children in an asylum, she became confused, fell into thought,
thanked me effusively, but evidently did not wish to do so; she would
have preferred pecuniary assistance. The eldest girl helped her in her
washing, and the younger took care of the little boy. The old woman
begged earnestly to be taken to the hospital, but on examining her nook I
found that the old woman was not particularly poor. She had a chest full
of effects, a teapot with a tin spout, two cups, and caramel boxes filled
with tea and sugar. She knitted stockings and gloves, and received
monthly aid from some benevolent lady. And it was evident that what the
peasant needed was not so much food as drink, and that whatever might be
given him would find its way to the dram-shop. In these quarters,
therefore, there were none of the sort of people whom I could render
happy by a present of money. But there were poor people who appeared to
me to be of a doubtful character. I noted down the old woman, the woman
with the children, and the peasant, and decided that they must be seen
to; but later on, as I was occupied with the peculiarly unfortunate whom
I expected to find in this house, I made up my mind that there must be
some order in the aid which we should bestow; first came the most
wretched, and then this kind. But in the next quarters, and in the next
after that, it was the same story, all the people had to be narrowly
investigated before they could be helped. But unfortunates of the sort
whom a gift of money would convert from unfortunate into fortunate
people, there were none. Mortifying as it is to me to avow this, I began
to get disenchanted, because I did not find among these people any thing
of the sort which I had expected. I had expected to find peculiar people
here; but, after making the round of all th