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"Well, let us go and see him, right away. Perhaps he'll relish a little good talk if he's so poorly off, any how."

So old aunt Dorothy Brinsmade, with her staff and crutch, hobbled away, and the widow, bending with age, hobbled after. But at the foot of the stairs, up which their way led them to Joe's quarters, they encountered blind Hetty, with a bowl and a plate in her hands. She had evidently been on an errand of kindness to some one, probably old Joe himself -- so it proved.

"So it's you, gal, is it?" said aunt Dorothy.

"Ah, it is Hetty!" said the widow.

"Yes," said the blind girl. "I've been round a little."

"Ah! Hetty," said the widow, "remember the words of the Saviour -- 'I was hungered and ye gave me meat; thirsty and yet gave me drink; naked and ye clothed me.'"

"I have often heard them," said she in reply, "and I wish I could do more as they bid me."

"The Lord bless you, gal, for the good that's in your soul," said the old woman."

"Drum, drum, drum; dro, dro, dro, de-dro;
Life is the time to serve the Lord --- "

"Have you seen old Joe this morning. Miss Hetty?" inquired the widow.

"Yes, I have just been to him with a little breakfast. He is old, and seems to be lame and stiff and sore ---- "

"Seems so, gal! Your father's almost----"

"Hush! aunt Dorothy," said the widow, laying her hand suddenly on her mouth. And in a lower tone she added -- "Don't hurt the poor girl's feelings."

The old woman raised for a moment her flashing eyes, but the fury in them softened as they met those of the pious widow, and fell on the delicate form of the young girl before her, so nearly blind, yet smiling kindly through her tears.

"What were you about to say of my father, aunt Dorothy?" she asked.

"Nothing! nothing, gal," she answered, "only he's not got your gal's heart in him."

"That's true of a great many men," said the widow, softly.

"I'll swear to that!" quickly chimed in the old woman. "There's a score of them to one who've just no heart at all, and old Joe might die for it afore he'd get much pity from -- "

Here again the widow pressed her finger on the old woman's mouth, who gulped down the remainder of the sentence, and the blind girl was left in doubt of her meaning, or in perfect ignorance of it.

"I hope you think old Joe is better now," said the widow to Hetty.

"Yes, he says he is, and he ate my breakfast with a good appetite."

"You've done him a mercy, Miss Hetty, and the Bible says, that he who gives a cup of water to a disciple, in the name of the Lord, shall not lose his reward."

"That's a great promise for so small a favor," said the girl.

"And it's a great Saviour, Hetty, who gives it, remember."

"I know -- I know, you always told me so."

"Yes, don't forget him."

"Is Joe a disciple?" inquired aunt Dorothy, humming her tones, and saying, "'Blest be the tie that binds.'"

"Joe's a poor, innocent sort of a body, a sufferer any way," said the widow, and perhaps the Saviour meant him."

"P'raps so," said aunt Dorothy. "Wall, good-bye, gal; we're going to try to climb these old rotten stairs to see him -- old Mrs. Prescott and I; may he's we can get some comfort in his soul -- from the Bible. Mrs. Prescott, come along -- the old stairs won't break down, I guess, though it would'nt hurt them much, if Cap'n Bunce would make a new sett."

Blind Hetty went off, and escaped hearing the last of the sentence, which might have wounded her.

On a wretched bed, with scarcely clothes to cover him, unshaven, uncombed, unwashed, in an unfinished part of the loft, they found the object of their search. Shall we say the dying man? Yes, truly, Joe was dying. He was feeble and aged; and the cold nights coming on, combined with rougher usage of late than usual, and poor Joe was "getting down" fast. Nobody knew this, least of all did he know it. As for the Captain, he had often seen the paupers sick and feeble, near death, and quite dead; he had also seen them low, and unaccountably weak, but up they came, and were smart again, so that he could not tell "for the life of him" how it would go with any of them when a little sick or ailing; but finding that Joe did not "rally," and having some idea that he might have been instrumental in "upsetting" him, as he termed Joe's illness, he sent word to the doctor to "call round in the course of the day."

Mother Prescott and the old woman approached the bed very quietly on which the sick man lay. The kind little, visit and the nourishing breakfast of Hetty, had really given him much relief. The old man raised his eyes on the new comers, and seeing the pious old widow one of them, he immediately smiled and put out his withered and trembling hand towards her.

But before we advance further with this interview, we desire to introduce the reader a little more plainly to the poor-house itself, and some of its immediate collaterals and surroundings, so we shall see where the paupers live.

CHAPTER II.
IN preparing Statistics of the Population, and tables on Political Economy, we should pay especial attention to what appears on the Surface. As there may have been other persons alive in our places, now below the surface, so there may once have been other mansions where now are found but such as these.