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Whatever character or position she may once have borne, she is now here, without delicacy, purity, softness, fear, love, or hope. She is one of the paupers of Crampton. The authorities have her in their charge. It makes no sort of difference with them what else she is, was, or might be. She costs the town so many dollars a year to keep her as she is!

Poor thing, though! She has a human soul and body, although these things are not, in her case, very well defined; and she is a lost, doomed one. She is as certain to die a forgotten, toothless hag, an old gone-by crone, a coarsely fed and shabbily dressed sinner, as ever certain was to any one of mortal name or kind. And prayers for the POOR in the church mean not such as she! Her class is forgotten -- is too hopeless -- is on the town -- is provided for already. Her class is the degraded one known only in law, not in charity -- a class sold to the public bidder -- sold out of Christian communities and Christian relationships, into the charnel-house -- sold to save church-going members, and all religious people of all religious denominations, if possible, one, two, or three per cent. additional tax on the grand list. Call not the poor-house we speak of a Christian institution. Its cruelties, its sufferings, its neglect, its forgotten, prayerless state point it out as one of the common and degraded institutions of selfishness, though planted in the very soil of New England.

"Hot tea and coffee, Mr. Boyce, you'll get enough of it in the other world," said Mag, rocking her body backwards and forwards, and crossing her feet. "But those things are only for the rich in this world. Poor folks must not complain if they have cold victuals. All that's wanted is to keep the life in them, no matter whether the blood is warm or not."

"It's a confounded lie," said old Dan, who was holding his place close to the chimney corner, and as usual chewing a large piece of tobacco. "Poor folks are's good as any body. Who cares for the rich? Burn down their house, and they are as poor as the rest ov us. And for my part, I love to see a good smart fire."

"Oh! pshaw, now, Dan, don't talk of incendiarism in your old age; one state prison job, I should think, would do for you," replied the hag.

"State prison's a palace to this rotten affair, and ten thousand like it. You never'11 deserve to go there, d--- you."

"It must be a grand place," said she, "it costs a great deal to educate folks there, especially so cursedly deserving ones as old Dan."

"Go to," growled that worthy and said no more.

Poor old widow Prescott! How she sighed as she saw and heard all this, and thought of by-gone days. But aunt Prescott was a good deal broken, and her sensitiveness not as formerly. Yet she groaned and turned away saying, "The Lord have mercy on us." Aunt Dorothy quietly smoked her pipe, and neither said anything nor offered a line of song.

As for poor Boyce the author, he was really unwell, and a little help would have done him good. He groaned on the bed, and said he was cold.

"Well now, the Lord bless you and send deliverance," said the good widow, trying to make him a little more comfortable. You shall have more clothes on your bed, and we'll heat a brick at the fire and warm your feet."

So saying, she brought a blanket from her own room, and threw it over him, and Jims got out of the ashes a warm brick, which they managed to roll up in a cloth, and applied to his feet. And this was scarcely done before the creaking outside door swung open, and the slight form of Henrietta glided into the room. She bore in her hand a bowl of hot tea, which she had prevailed on her mother to make, and send over to the "folks."

Aunt Dorothy, before unmoved, and careless, apparently, as to the condition of every thing around her, now suddenly laid aside her pipe, and jumping to her feet, exclaimed -- "The Lord's heard your prayers. Miss Prescott, and sent deliverance to Boyce, as he did of old to Peter, ha! ha!

"Drum, drum, drum; praise ye the Lord,
Drum, de drum, drum, dro; with one consent,
Drum, drum, dro."

"Mr. Boyce!" shrieked Mag, "your tea's come, and I believe the Lord's angels went right after it when they heard us talking. For my part, I always believed the angels had a mighty deal to do with us in this world."

"They've kept a good account of you, I'll swear!" grumbled Dan.

"Ha! ha! ha!" shrieked the hag -- "set a thief to catch a thief."

After Boyce had taken his tea, aunt Prescott covered him up as warmly as possible, and he declared he never felt better in his life. He really began to perspire, and soon fell into a sound sleep. Henrietta glided from the room and went home.

Still the evening's storm kept on, though not a very hard and driving one. It was winter's fore-paw, and with it he kept scratching at the windows and doors, and seeking for admission to every body's house and room.

Mr. and Mrs. Haddock, having thought all day of going over to the poor-house in the evening, were not prevented by the storm. As they turned from the street and passed an open lot leading to the gate of the grounds, they encountered Dick Bunce and Roxy, sauntering off together in high glee.