our custodian that whatever amount we
awarded her, whether it were much or little, would be forthwith
consigned to the confectioner, in exchange for mince-pies and tarts of
the very best quality; and I regret to say, that this announcement had
the effect of reducing considerably the sum she derived from the
charity of the ward, and effectually preventing the consummation of
any very formidable debauch with her favourite viands. But the poor
simpleton was as merry as she was innocent and harmless; and all
unsuspicious of the latent grudge which had lessened her gratuity,
tripped hastily off, to enjoy at least one delicious repast.

After we had sat some hours, a very distressing case was brought
forward. A poor woman, the wife of a working-man, and the mother of a
young family, had been deserted by her husband, who had left her,
besides her own children, the charge of his bedridden parents. Under
this accumulation of burdens, she had been heroically struggling for
some months, in the vain attempt, by her single energies, to ward off
the approach of want, and to act at the same time the part of nurse to
the old couple. She had succeeded in a great measure, and modestly
sought but a little help to enable her to persevere in her arduous
undertaking.

Then came an old man, verging on fourscore, the very _beau ideal_ of
the merchant's serving-man of the last century. He had once been
comparatively prosperous, but, judging from his cheerful face, perhaps
hardly ever happier than he was now. For fifty years of his life, he
had been _custos_ and confidential house keeper to a well-known firm,
which, after four or five generations of unvarying prosperity, had
sunk in the panic of 1846 into the gulf of bankruptcy. In the general
wreck that followed, old Benjamin was forgotten, or remembered only
with a pang of unavailing regret. He found a refuge, however, in some
small garret, where he contrives to preserve his cheerfulness and his
pigtail, the only outward and visible sign of his former
respectability, and where he acts as master of the ceremonies to a
clique of ancient ladies, his fellow-lodgers, to whom he is at once
the guardian and the beau of the fourth floor. When he had received
his own little modicum of benevolence, he pleaded hard for the
immediate settlement of the claim of one of his fair _coterie_, a
widow of fourscore and five; and finding that his request could not be
complied with, but that she must be left til