me, as you was well, so to say, then. Ah! it's
only them as have tried it knows what the pulling through up to strength
again is, when the illness itself seems gone."

Lionel's conscience was rather suggestive at that moment. He might have
been stronger than he was, by this time, had he "pulled through" with a
better will, and given way less. "I am sorry not to see you better,
Grind," he kindly said.

"You see me at the worst, sir, to-day," said the man, in a tone of
apology, as if seeking to excuse his own sickness. "I _be_ getting
better, and that's a thing to be thankful for. I only gets the fever
once in three days now. Yesterday, sir, I got down to the field, and
earned what'll come to eighteen pence. I did indeed, sir, though you'd
not think it, looking at me to-day."

"I should not," said Lionel. "Do you mean to say you went to work in
your present state?"

"I didn't seem a bit ill yesterday, sir, except for the weakness. The
fever, it keeps me down all one day, as may be to-day; then the morrow I
be quite prostrate with the weakness it leaves; and the third day I be,
so to speak, well. But I can't do a full day's work, sir; no, nor hardly
half of a one, and by evening I be so done over I can scarce crawl to
my place here. It ain't much, sir, part of a day's work in three; but I
be thankful for that improvement. A week ago, I couldn't do as much as
that."

More suggestive thoughts for Lionel.

"He'd a got better quicker, sir, if he could do his work regular," put
in the woman. "What's one day's work out o' three--even if 'twas a full
day's--to find us all victuals? In course he can't fare better nor we;
and Peckaby's, they don't give much trust to us. He gets a pot o' gruel,
or a saucer o' porridge, or a hunch o' bread with a mite o' cheese."

Lionel looked at the man. "You cannot eat plain bread now, can you,
Grind?"

"All this day, sir, I shan't eat nothing; I couldn't swallow it," he
answered. "After the fever and the shaking's gone, then I could eat, but
not bread; it seems too dry for the throat, and it sticks in it. I get a
dish o' tea, or something in that way. The next day--my well day, as I
calls it--I can eat all afore me."

"You ought to have more strengthening food."

"It's not for us to say, sir, as we ought to have this here food, or
that there food, unless we earns it," replied Grind, in a meek spirit of
contented resignation that many a rich man might have taken a pattern
from. "Mr. J