The miserable bits of furniture left were fit for nothing but a bonfire.

"Good morning, Mrs K_," said my friend, as we entered the stifling house; "how are you geting on ?" The mother stood in the middle of the floor, wiping her sore eyes, and then folding her hands in a tattered apron; whilst her daughters gazed upon us vacantly from the background.

"Oh, then," replied the woman, "things is worse wid us entirely, sir, than whenever ye wor here before.

I dunno what will we do whin the winter comes." In reply to me, she said, "We are seven altogether, wid my husband an' myself.

I have one lad was ill o' the yallow jaundice this many months, an' there is somethin' quare hangin' over that boy this day; I dunno whatever shall we do wid him.