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"The town nominally takes care of the paupers," said she. "It pays Captain Bunce so many dollars a year to support them; but it makes no adequate provision for their enjoyment and comfort."

"Why, I am utterly surprised to hear of that!" said Mrs. Newton. "My husband has repeatedly, time and again, informed me that the town was very generous in its support of the poor. He says it is a great tax on the people, and that they feel it."

"I don't know how that is," replied Mrs. Haddock, "but I do know that the poor in that institution have been, many of them, in circumstances far more comfortable than they now are -- as the widow Prescott, for example, whose husband was once a deacon in this church -- and that they now are in great want of the most common clothing, of nourishing food, and comfortable rooms; in short, of every thing to make life to one of us desirable."

Mrs. Stout had again entered. She was overwhelmed at the statement. Her husband was one of the overseers of the poor, and she didn't know how many, many times he had told her, that the paupers were leading a very comfortable life of it for them. "He always said, however," she continued, "that they were a rather depraved set of beings, and past hope, that we couldn't do much, if anything to improve them."

"Mrs. Stout," said her friend, "I have been among them often. I called there to-day, on my ride here. I know that they are in the most pitiable plight in the world. It is true that many of them are morally depraved, and almost hopeless of good, perhaps entirely so as they now are, but among them there are very decent persons, whose greatest crime is that they are unmeasurably poor, and friendless, and weak-minded. They are as low in poverty as any body can ever get in this world, being wholly dependent on charity for every comfort or necessary they enjoy. We have by great exertion induced Captain Bunce to allow us to take home one of the sick men, Mr. Boyce -- you don't know him, do you?"

Every body was silent -- no one seemed to recollect the name.

"True," she went on to say, "you don't know him. But in our village library, and on more than one of your parlor tables, ladies, I have seen a popular work, of which he is the author -- at the present time, without a change of clothes, without flannels, without good shoes, or hat, with nearly worn out coat and pants, in poor feeble health, and weak in mind, Boyce is one of the paupers. We have him now under our roof."

Mrs. Hays raised both her hands and eyes in astonishment, so did Mrs. Newton, Miss Flush, Miss Lincoln, and every other lady, for Mrs. Haddock enjoyed their confidence and respect. They all again, and again, protested their utter ignorance of any such circumstance of poverty among them, and showered on Mrs. Haddock their thanks for taking care of him. They had no idea there was any particular suffering there, the more especially as Captain Bunce was said to be a very humane sort of a man.

"It is true of them, my friends," said Mrs. Haddock, "that they all want warmer under-clothing than they now have, and warmer bedding. They are very poorly protected against the approaching cold weather, having nothing to wear, that is different from their fall and summer clothing. And we know that such feeble and aged persons cannot live so."

The conversation was interrupted, by the arrival of the pastor with his wife. The usual salutations were forthwith gone into, and a happy smile diffused itself over the group, as the new comers exerted themselves to say something agreeable to every one. Nor had they been long present, ere Mrs. Stout again, and again appearing, now announced 'tea.' The whole company gathered around the well loaded tables of Mrs. Stout, and Mr. Rodman, their pastor, implored the Divine blessing. Then as afterwards in his prayer, he was careful to remember the poor, on whom he implored the best mercies of heaven. But it was evident to Mrs. Haddock, and to nearly every other lady present, whose mind had been aroused to think of the paupers, that his petitions had no reference whatever to them, but to the worthier poor in the families about town, or to the great family of poverty, represented, not in the tangible poor-houses, but in the mere idea of poverty, which the mind is wont to indulge on that subject. "We in our prayers for the poor," thought she, "pray either for those we cannot reach, a class of humanity in the abstract, or for those among us, but little our inferiors, to assist whom confers honor on ourselves. We overlook the poor who cannot recompense us again."

When a fit opportunity offered, she again brought up the subject, and particularly to the notice of her pastor.

"Well," said he, "this is a singular state of things indeed. I have long been aware of the incongruity of our poor-house system and our Christian benevolence, but I have never seen the thing exactly right, have never felt, acted, prayed aright over it."

"We have all, Mr. Rodman, too much overlooked this class of our fellow-beings. If they are old offenders and morally vile, they are still worthy of Christian commiseration and effort. And certainly there ought to be some arrangement to separate the more depraved and hardened of both sexes from the society of those who are simply the victims of misfortune, without any loss of virtuous and moral principle -- and especially ought the more youthful, the boys and girls, to be kept separate from the older inmates who are vulgar and profane."