his voice, "why do
we never speak of her?"

"_Can_ we speak of her?" Waymark returned, knowing well who was meant.

"A short time ago I could not; now I feel the need. It will give me no
pain, but great happiness.',

"That is all gone by," he continued, with a solemn smile. "To me she is
no longer anything but a remembrance, an ideal I once knew. The noblest
and sweetest woman I have known, or shall know, on earth."

They talked of her with subdued voices, reverently and tenderly.
Waymark described what he knew or divined of the life she was now
leading, her beneficent activity, her perfect adaptation to the new
place she filled.

"In a little while," Julian said, when they had fallen into thought
again, "you will have your second letter. And then?"

There was no answer. Julian waited a moment, then rose and, clasping
his friend's hand, bade him good night.

Waymark awoke once or twice before morning, but there was no coughing
in the next room. He felt glad, and wondered whether there was indeed
any improvement in the invalid's health. But at the usual
breakfast-time Julian did not appear. Waymark knocked at his door, with
no result. He turned the handle and entered.

On this same day, Ida was visiting her houses. Litany lane and Elm
Court now wore a changed appearance. At present it was possible to
breathe even in the inmost recesses of the Court. There the fronts of
the houses were fresh white-washed; in the Lane they were new-painted.
Even the pavement and the road-way exhibited an improvement. If you
penetrated into garrets and cellars you no longer found squalor and
dilapidation; poverty in plenty, but at all events an attempt at
cleanliness everywhere, as far, that is to say, as a landlord's care
could ensure it. The stair-cases had ceased to be rotten pit-falls; the
ceilings showed traces of recent care; the walls no longer dripped with
moisture or were foul with patches of filth. Not much change, it is
true, in the appearance of the inhabitants; yet close inquiry would
have elicited comforting assurances of progressing reform, results of a
supervision which was never offensive, never thoughtlessly exaggerated.
Especially in the condition of the children improvement was
discernible. Lodgers in the Lane and the Court had come to understand
that not even punctual payment of weekly rent was sufficient to
guarantee them stability of tenure. Under this singular lady-landlord
something more than that was expe