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It is false in principle; it is evil in practice; it is inhuman and needlessly corrupt.

But to return to our paupers. They went back to their old quarters at Siddleton's with downcast faces, some of them in tears.

"Oh! Mag," said Mrs. Prescott, "will that dream ever be fulfilled?"

"God only knows," said the other, smiting her withered hands upon her head and staring wildly round her: "Yes, it must be -- we can't live so. If there's a God in heaven he will fulfill it, and have mercy on us."

But Dan shook his head and grumbled, "What if there isn't a God?"

"It'll make no difference, Dan, you know it won't," said she. "Mankind themselves will see our afflictions and relieve them."

"I never saw any good thing in mankind," said Tucker.

"No, nor I," said Dan.

"There's a m -- m -- mi -- migh -- mighty little dif-- dif- france in -- m -- m -- mankind -- any how," stammered out Sam White, the poor shoemaker.

"There's a great difference, Mr. White," said the widow, "between God and men."

"Ye -- ye-s there -- is -- is -- so," said he.

"I believe in the Lord," said Bill.

"So -- do- - - I," emphatically replied White.

Granny Wakeup came in on her crutch from one of the side doors. "Well," said she, "does any body know whether we are to have any supper to-night?"

"Didn't you eat dinner enough. Granny, to last over night?" inquired Mag Davis.

"No, I didn't. I want my three meals a day, and hearty one's too, or I'm fit for nothing."

"I guess mother Siddleton will teach you in the course of two or three days that the last thing to be calculated on here with regularity is a meal of victuals."

"Then I can tell her she'll feel the rap of my crutch," said the haggard old creature.

"Ha! ha! ha!" screamed Roxy and Mag.

"It's no laughing matter, girl, I tell you," said she. "Do you think that aunt Prescott and me, and sister Peters, and old Joshua Hicks, eighty or ninety years of age, arn't going to have what victuals we want?"

"I tell you, she'll give you what she's a mind to, won't she, aunt Prescott?" asked Mag.

"She wants to take off our thoughts from eating and drinking, and worldly fashions, and make us ready for the other world. So far she is right, I suppose," said the widow with a sigh.

"Well, I could always say my prayers best," said granny Wakeup, "after a good warm cup of tea and a biscuit."

"Biscuit! by the Lord!" exclaimed Dan.

"Don't you have any biscuit here?" asked she.

"We have an oat-meal cake once in a while, or an Indian hard crust; do you call that biscuit?"

"No, I don't."

"You'll look through that door a good many times for any other biscuit in this house," said Mag.

"Well then, give us some milk toast."

"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Tucker.

"That ain't very dear living, is it?" said she.

"We don't get it though in this place. Toast! why I've forgot how it tastes, havn't you, Dan?"

"Yes, ten years ago," said he.

"Dried beef is good, then," said the old lady.

"Well, the beef is dry enough!" shouted Mag.

"Ha! ha! ha!" snored out Dan.

"Good for Mag," said Tucker.

"First rate," said Roxy.

Alas! old granny Wakeup, you have yet to take your first lessons in the poor-house. You will find that you have stepped down a long step from the poorest level of free society, where there is a private home and small means to do with. Oh, what a happy home is that of a poor, unpainted cottage, with a green lawn before it, a lilac bush and rose at the window, a plain, rough fence shutting it in from the road-side; a little stream warbling by; a rough shed where the little brindled cow with milk for the children, chews her cud, and the fowls walk around her, finding in the loft their nests; where the cheerful boys and girls may fill their hands with eggs for breakfast; the little pig-pen near, its occupant grunting for his evening meal; the little garden filled with plants and choicest vines. What a happy home is that to the desolation that reigns here!

Yes, granny Wakeup found it so. Mrs. Siddleton informed her that she had, all her long life, thought too much of creature comforts, and that she must now school herself into self-denial. "I shall give you all a cracker each and a little weak tea to-night," she said; "after which you had better retire, at least very soon, to rest. And mind," said she, "before you close your eyes, to lift your prayers to the Bountiful Giver of every good and perfect gift for this day's mercies."

Granny Wakeup had just come to the poor-house -- her last reliance having failed her in the shape of an old faithful servant, brought up in her family in better days, and who, to the last, rented a part of a small house and took in washing, by which she managed to support her aged and broken-down benefactress. The old lady had been a widow nearly twenty years. Her husband left her with a small property, which she was obliged to spend in her support; and when brought into a state of destitution, her faithful Eunice, herself nearly sixty years of age, determined to devote herself to her comfort. Eunice had heard of the poor-house, and shuddered to think that either herself or her beloved mistress might be compelled to accept of its hollow-hearted charity, especially to submit to the degradation of a public sale at the auction block, as articles of little value.