f each other, was that old man and woman, and had lived long
together, an' didn't want to part till death. So they had managed to
stick to the old home, ay, and they had stuck to their colours, for the
bit o' blue was still pinned to the tattered coat o' the man and the
thin gown o' the woman, (neither coat nor gown would fetch anything at
the pawn-shop!) and there was no smell o' drink in the room. Well, that
old couple went to the tea-fight. It was a bitter cold night, but they
came all the same, with nothing to cover the woman's thin old arms.

"The moment they appeared, away went one o' Miss Robinson's workers to
the room where they keep chests full of clothes sent by charitable folk
to the Institoot, an' you should have seen that old woman's wrinkled
face when the worker returned wi' the thickest worsted shawl she could
lay hold of, an' put it on her shoulders as tenderly as if the old woman
had been her own mother! At the same time they gave a big-coat to the
old man."

"But, I say," interrupted Simkin, "that Christmas feed an' shawl an'
coat wouldn't keep the couple for a twel'month, if they was sent home to
starve as before, would it?"

"Of course not," returned the marine, "but they wasn't sent off to
starve; they was looked after. Ay, an' the people o' the whole
neighbourhood are now looked after, for Miss Robinson has bought up a
grog-shop in Nobbs Lane--one o' the worst places in Portsmouth--an'
converted it into a temperance coffee-house, wi' lots of beds to send
people to when the Institoot overflows, an' a soup-kitchen for the
destitoot poor, an' a wash'us for them and the soldiers' wives, an', in
short, it has changed the whole place; but if I go on like this I'll
send Moses to sleep, for I've heard 'im smotherin' his yawns more than
once a'ready!"

"It's not for want of interest in what you're sayin' though, old man,"
returned Moses, with a tremendous unsmothered yawn, which of course set
all his comrades off, and confirmed them in the belief that it was time
to seek repose.

Scarcely a single comment was made on the narrative, as each laid his
weary head on his arm or on a folded garment, and stretched himself out
on the hard ground, in nearly as destitute a condition as the poor folk,
about whom they had been hearing; for while their bed was as hard as
theirs, and the covering as scant, the meal they had recently consumed
was by no means what hungry men would call satisfying.

There is rea