nient out of it at
the minute, and I was hasting lest he'd gone too far to be caught up. He
have now."

"Is Grind better?"

"He ain't no worse, sir. There he is," she added, flinging the door
open.

On the side of the kitchen, opposite to the door, was a pallet-bed
stretched against the wall, and on it lay the woman's husband, Grind,
dressed. It was a small room, and it appeared literally full of
children, of encumbrances of all sorts. A string extended from one side
of the fire-place to the other, and on this hung some wet coloured
pinafores, the steam ascending from them in clouds, drawn out by the
heat of the fire. The children were in various stages of _un_-dress,
these coloured pinafores doubtless constituting their sole outer
garment. But that Grind's eye had caught his, Lionel might have
hesitated to enter so uncomfortable a place. His natural kindness of
heart--nay, his innate regard for the feelings of others, let them be
ever so inferior in station--prevented his turning back when the man had
seen him.

"Grind, don't move, don't get off the bed," Lionel said hastily. But
Grind was already up. The ague fit was upon him then, and he shook the
bed as he sat down upon it. His face wore that blue, pallid appearance,
which you may have seen in aguish patients.

"You don't seem much better, Grind."

"Thank ye, sir, I be baddish just now again, but I ain't worse on the
whole," was the man's reply. A civil, quiet, hard-working man as any on
the estate; nothing against him but his large flock of children, and his
difficulty of getting along any way. The mouths to feed were
many--ravenous young mouths, too; and the wife, though anxious and
well-meaning, was not the most thrifty in the world. She liked gossiping
better than thrift; but gossip was the most prevalent complaint of Clay
Lane, so far as its female population was concerned.

"How long is it that you have been ill?" asked Lionel, leaning his elbow
on the mantel-piece, and looking down on Grind, Mrs. Grind having
whisked away the pinafores.

"It's going along of four weeks, sir, now. It's a illness, sir, I takes
it, as must have its course."

"All illnesses must have that, as I believe," said Lionel. "Mine has
taken its own time pretty well, has it not?"

Grind shook his head.

"You don't look none the better for your bout, sir. And it's a long time
you must have been a-getting strong. Mr. Jan, he said, just a month ago,
when he first come to see