One eye had been taken out, and the other was almost useless; there he sat, blind, and cheerfully telling the tale--"Muster Marsham--Muster Henry Marsham--had been verra kind--ten shillin' a week, and an odd job now and then.

I do suffer terr'ble, miss, at times--but ther's noa good in grumblin'-- is there ?" Next door, in a straggling line of cottages, she found a gentle, chattering widow whose husband had been drowned in the brew-house at Beechcote twenty years before, drowned in the big vat!--before any one had heard a cry or a sound.

The widow was proud of so exceptional a tragedy; eager to tell the tale.

How had she lived since?
Oh, a bit here and a bit there.

And, of late, half a crown from the parish.
Last of all, in a cottage midway between the village and Beechcote, she paused to see a jolly middle-aged woman, with a humorous eye and a stream of conversation--held prisoner by an incurable disease.