of you
women know what that means. She pays 1s. 3d. for her share of the
cellar, for you know in towns such as I come from, we're building so
many factories, and railway sheds, and what not, that we've no room left
to live in, so Mrs Clark had to share even her cellar. Many a time when
I passed down that dreadful street and hadn't time to go in, I'd just
shout down the cellar and she'd have an answer back in no time. I used
to go down for a few minutes, just to cheer myself up a bit, for there's
a lot of discouraging things happen in our sort of work, and she always
made me ashamed. She was so content, never wanting more and always
thankful for what she had.

"Well! one day I was in Paradise Street. It was wet and cold, and the
beer-shops were full of drunken men and women, and even the children
were shouting foul language.

"'O God,' I said, ready to cry out in the street, 'How long will the
power of the devil last in this town?' However, I thought of Mrs Clark
down there, and how she had to live in it all, so I went down the steps,
and there she was, but I could see that even she had been crying.

"'Now, Mrs Clark!' I said, 'you don't mean to tell me that it's your
turn to be cheered up?'

"'No!' she said, 'not now! I've got it done already!'

"'Well, now!' I said, 'it's so unusual to see you with those red eyes
that you make me quite curious. That is, if it's nothing that'll hurt
you to tell,' I said.

"'No!' she said, 'it'll not hurt me. I'm a silly old woman,' she said.
She didn't speak for a minute, and then she went on:

"'You know it's my birthday to-day, Mr Charter. I'm sixty this very
Friday. Well, you know, I always say to myself, "Short commons on
Friday," I says, "because 1s. 6d. won't last for ever." But somehow, with
its being my birthday I suppose, and me being sixty, I got it into my
head that the Lord would perhaps remember me. I've gone on loving Him
for over forty years, and it did seem hard that on my birthday and me
sixty, He should have left me with only a crust of bread to my tea.
However, I sat down to eat my crust, but when I began to say a blessing
over it, I just began to cry like a silly child. Well, what do you
think! I'd just taken the first bite, when a child, whose mother I know,
came running in and put a little newspaper parcel on the table. "Mrs
Clark," she says, "my mother was out working to-day, and the lady gave
her a big pot of dripping, so she sent a bit round for your tea