of the food with a groan, all the other old women groaned
in concert.

Grannie looked at them, and felt that she had crossed an impassable
gulf. Never again could she be the Grannie she had been when she awoke
that morning.

CHAPTER XIV.

It was bitterly cold weather when Grannie arrived at the workhouse.
Not that the workhouse itself was really cold. Its sanitary
arrangements were as far as possible perfect; its heating arrangements
were also fairly good. Notwithstanding the other old women's groans,
the food was passable and even nourishing, and beyond the fact that
there was an absence of hope over everything, there were no real
hardships in the great Beverley workhouse. There were a good many old
women in this workhouse--in fact, two large wards full--and these were
perhaps the most melancholy parts of the establishment. They slept on
clean little narrow beds in a huge ward upstairs. There was a
partition about eight feet high down the middle of this room. Beds
stood in rows, back to back, at each side of this partition; beds stood
in rows along the walls; there were narrow passages between the long
rows of beds. The room was lighted with many windows high up in the
walls, and there was a huge fireplace at either end. By a curious
arrangement, which could scarcely be considered indulgent, the fires in
very cold weather were lit at nine o'clock in the morning, after the
paupers had gone downstairs, and put out again at five in the
afternoon. Why the old creatures might not have had the comfort of the
fires when they were in their ward, it was difficult to say, but such
was the rule of the place.

Grannie's bed was just under one of the windows, and when she went
upstairs the first night, the chill, of which she had complained ever
since she had taken her bath, kept her awake during the greater part of
the hours of darkness. There were plenty of blankets on her little
bed, but they did not seem to warm her. The fact is, there was a great
chill at her heart itself. Her vitality was suddenly lowered; she was
afraid of the long dreary future; afraid of all those hopeless old
women; afraid of the severe cleanliness, the life hedged in with
innumerable rules, the dinginess of the new existence. Her faith
burned dim; her trust in God himself was even a little shaken. She
wondered why such a severe punishment was sent to her; why she, who
wrote so little, should get a disease brought on by writing.