untingdon, looking round on her hearers;
then seeing an expression of interest on every countenance, she
continued, "Well, I will, if you wish it. My hero to-day is John
Howard."

"Not a soldier this time, Aunt Kate."

"Not in your sense, Walter, but one of the truest and bravest in mine."

"Pray, then, let us hear all about his exploits, dear aunt."

"You shall, Walter. His exploits just consisted in this, that he
imposed a great duty on himself as the one object of his life, and never
let anything turn him from it, though obstacles met him in every
direction such as nothing but the highest sense of duty could have
nerved him to break through. In the first place, he was of a weakly
constitution, and might therefore well have excused himself from any
unnecessary labours, and might have indulged in luxuries which might
almost have been considered as necessaries to one whose appetite was not
strong. He could well have afforded such innocent indulgence, for he
was a man of good fortune. He was, however, remarkable for his
abstemious habits; and having been led, when high sheriff of his county,
to look into the state of Bedford jail, he was so shocked with the
miserable condition of the prisoners and their being crowded together in
a place filthy, damp, and ill-ventilated, that he set himself to make a
tour of inspection of all the county jails in England, and soon
completed it, and was examined before the House of Commons on the state
of our prisons. And here he had to suffer from that misrepresentation
and misunderstanding which are too often the lot of those who have set
themselves to some great and noble work. It seemed so extraordinary to
some members of Parliament that a gentleman, out of pure benevolence,
should devote himself to such a painful work, and run the risk of
contagion, that they could hardly understand it; and one gentleman asked
`at whose expense he travelled,'--a question which Howard could scarcely
answer without some indignant emotion. You see, they could not
appreciate such exalted heroism; and surely it required no little moral
courage to persevere. But he did persevere, and his work grew upon him.

"From England he went abroad, and visited the prisons on the Continent,
devoting his time and fortune to the great work of discovering, and, as
far as might be, remedying, the abuses he found in these sad places of
misery and often cruelty; and though he was introduced to the noble and
the