But the old man broke in: "Yes, all that is true, neighbour; and I have seen some of those poor women grown old.

But my father used to know some of them when they were young; and he said that they were as little like young women as might be: they had hands like bunches of skewers, and wretched little arms like sticks; and waists like hour-glasses, and thin lips and peaked noses and pale cheeks; and they were always pretending to be offended at anything you said or did to them.

No wonder they bore ugly children, for no one except men like them could be in love with them--poor things!" He stopped, and seemed to be musing on his past life, and then said: "And do you know, neighbours, that once on a time people were still anxious about that disease of Idleness: at one time we gave ourselves a great deal of trouble in trying to cure people of it.

Have you not read any of the medical books on the subject ?" "No," said I; for the old man was speaking to me.
"Well," said he, "it was thought at the time that it was the survival of the old mediaeval disease of leprosy: it seems it was very catching, for many of the people afflicted by it were much secluded, and were waited upon by a special class of diseased persons queerly dressed up, so that they might be known.

They wore amongst other garments, breeches made of worsted velvet, that stuff which used to be called plush some years ago." All this seemed very interesting to me, and I should like to have made the old man talk more.