to him what she had said to herself,
about this being the right place for one in her circumstances. She
considered that it would be an abuse of private charity for her to be
maintained in idleness at an expense which might set forward in life
some person in a less hopeless position.

"You speak cheerfully, as if you were in earnest," said the
Commissioner.

"Of course, I am in earnest," she replied.

And cheerful she remained throughout the conversation. Only once the
Commissioner saw her eyes filled and a quiver on her lips. He did not
know it; but he had unconsciously called her "Madam."

Would she prefer the children's department of the House? There was no
doubt that she could teach them much. Would she change her quarters? No.
She was too old now for that. She should not be a good companion now for
children; and they would be too much for her. Unless she was wanted--

By no means. She should be where she preferred to be.

She preferred to be where she was. The Commissioner's lady soon after
dropped in, and managed to engage Smith in conversation. But there was
no result; because Smith did not choose that there should be. Perhaps
she was more in the infirmary; and had oftener a warm seat by the fire,
and was spoken to with more deference. But this might be solely owing to
the way she made with the people by her own acts and manners. The
invalids and the infirm grew so fond of her that they poured out to her
all their complaints. She was favored with the knowledge of every
painful sensation as it passed, and every uneasy thought as it arose.

"I never thought to die in such a place as this," groaned old Johnny
Jacks.

"I wonder at that," said his old wife; "for you never took any care to
provide yourself a better--to say nothing of me." And she went on to
tell how Johnny had idled and drank his life away, and brought her here
at last. Much of Johnny's idling and drinking having been connected with
electioneering in an abominably venal city, he was a great talker on
politics, and the state was made responsible for all his troubles. He
said it was a shame that any body should die in a workhouse; he appealed
to his neighbor Smith, who was warming his broth, whether it was not so?

"Which is best?" she answered; "being here, or on a common, or the
sea-sands? Because," she added, "there was a time when old people like
us were left to die wherever they fell. There are countries now where
old people die so. I shoul