"Well," said the Old Woman of Wesel, "have you seen

"Shut your eyes again and see her double."

'I did as I was bidden, and lo! I was in a strange land; every. thing about me was indeed strange. There was a village in ruins, with smoke rising from it. A church, very mean, with a dome battered and half broken down. I saw sacred pictures lying scattered about, trampled into the dirt. A smell of blood and burning filled the air; on all sides lay heaps of tumbled clothes covering motionless human forms-dead doubtless.

'Against the wall of a house, the rafters of which had fallen in, and were smouldering, and from which occasionally leaped up a flame, sat a woman. Good heavens! It was Lady Destrier-the face was hers, the full eyes hers-but this face and these eyes had not in them the lady's expression of listlessness. It was Lady Destrier, but in Bulgarian costume: the same woman, the same colouring, the same profile; but not the same in everything else. A poor creature with dishevelled hair, with a horrible wound in her throat, clasping a baby in her arms, and her bosom dabbled with the child's blood. She swayed herself, the agony of despair in her eyes; she kissed, she hugged her babe; and when for a moment she loosed it, or laid it on her lap, I saw that the child was dead, it had been transfixed by a bayonet.

"My dove, my white lily," she cried, "open your eyes, look on your mother, my soul! my precious pearl! Thy father has been killed, thy mother outraged, thy house burnt. of God rest on the hated Turks and blight them! idol! Light of my eyes! put up thy dear lips and kiss thy mother, if but for once, only once more, that I may die content!"

May the curse
My soul! my

'Then she laid the dead infant upon the ground before her, and, with outstretched arms, cried, "O thou! the All Holy, the Mother of Sorrows! Thou hadst thy little one, thy Jesus! He lay at thy breast, He wept, and thou didst comfort Him with a lullaby and kisses! Hear me from Heaven above! Give me back, give me back for one hour, for one minute, my little babe, my angel! "

'She clasped her hands, she stooped over the child, looking at the still face, listening for a breath from the lips. And all the

while she gave not a thought to the awful gash in her own throat, from which the blood oozed. Then, from round the corner came an old man, with a scalp wound; he was in a flowing priest's gaberdine, and he said: "Anoka, God has taken the child."

"It was the Turks, may they be accursed of God! they ran him through with their bayonets. May the blight of Heaven rest on them all, and above all on their murderous-minded Sultan ! My child!"-she returned to consideration of the silent figure before her " Oh my child! Oh, Mother of Heaven! Oh, Queen of Sorrows, help me! "

""The Mother of Sorrows," said the priest, who was himself dabbled with blood, "had to give up her Son to the murderers; and they crucified Him. But there is a turn in Life's wheel, and they were cast down into Hell, and He and the Holy Mother are exalted to Heaven."

'I felt the hot hand that clutched mine relaxed, and I opened my eyes.

"Well," said the Old Woman of Wesel, "have you seen your lady's double?"

'I remained silent, strange thoughts worked in my brain.

""Do you not see," said she," that everything in Life is double? That each life has its counterpart, but placed in precisely the opposite position to which it finds itself at the time? Presently the lower life mounts, and as it does so, the double descends. You cannot lift one bucket out of a well without lowering the other. Now it comes to the turn of Anoka to ascend; as she crosses the line of life of your lady all is changed. She will enter on a new condition, one of great prosperity. She will become the favourite of the Sultan, in his harem, and will have jewels and rich garments and slaves to wait on her."

""And Lady Destrier?"

"As the lines cross, she will be born again and become a hand in a match factory, live in the London slums, and die of a rotted jaw, produced by the phosphorus with which she has worked. God is just! Why should your lady have all the good things and likewise Anoka evil things? It will be but just that the latter should be comforted and the former tormented in the new stage of curvilinear life."

"Then I said hesitatingly, "I suppose that I also have a double?"

Certainly you have; would you like to see him?"

'I obeyed her; and saw a squalid room in the East-end of London. It reeked with human exhalations, fried bloaters, and the smell of leather.

'The room was occupied by a lean pallid man, evidently a cobbler, who was sitting at a dingy window, engaged upon patching an old pair of boots. The apartment was tenanted as well by his wife, a slatternly woman, with a baby at her breast, by her girls, two daughters grown up, and by a son. Also by a lodgergood God! myself-my own very self, white, with hollow eyes, just recovered from a severe illness; myself seated half clothed on a burst and filthy mattress of straw placed on the floor; myself— greedily gnawing at a piece of bread on which was a shred of herring.

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"It's of no use, Garge," said the woman. George is my Christian name; but she was addressing my double, not me. can't keep you 'ere no longer, you ain't done no work and brought us a penny not for a month.”

"How could I when I was ill ? "

"That's all fine enough, but we ain't agoin' to support you no longer. We can't afford it.”

""You've sold my tools," said my double," and that's paid yer 'andsome."

"Andsome ain't the word. It's just paid fer keepin' yer alive. Now yer tools is gone. We ain't lords and ladies nussed in the lap of haffluence as can afford to be charitable. We be poor folk, and hardly earn enough to keep our own bellies full.”

"I am not strong enough to look for work."

""I can't 'elp that. Out you must toddle into the street."

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'Gor'," said the poor convalescent, "I'd sell my soul for a cup o' milk. I feels a sort of a cravin' as bread won't fill.”

"Then you may lap the dirty water out of the gutter," said the woman, "yer won't get any milk from me; why, we ha'n't got none for ourselves. Can't afford it."

"I don't know what to do," sighed my sick double.

"Look 'ere," said the cobbler, turning round, "you go and commit a larceny; just steal something out of a shop and get committed, and they'll make yer pretty comfortable in gaol.”

"Aye, I'll do that. There's nothing else left for me to do," said the enfeebled wretch, rising with difficulty from his mattress. The fiery hand that clasped mine was loosened. I opened my

eyes.

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Have you seen your double ? the woman inquired. "I have seen him," I exclaimed; "and I must go." ""Whither?" she inquired, with her burning eyes fixed on

mine.

""To London. I must look for my brother-my doubleand help him.""

'And,' said I, ' did you find your double?'

My dear sir,' said the stranger, 'everyone may find his unfortunate double if he looks for him below the surface, among the submerged.'

S. BARING-GOULD.

A FEW CHARACTERS IN A WORKHOUSE

WARD.

I Do not remember to have read anywhere of one of the most interesting points in our great workhouses-the characters of the occupants of the 'aged' wards, all of whom must be sixty years of age or over. The inmates of our public institutions are so often treated in the mass that few people can have realised the enormous range that their personalities and individualities cover. Educated and ignorant, crotchety and good-humoured, open and self-centred, cheerful and morose, they rub shoulders day after day, and year after year, till the common leveller takes them to another bourn. And it is hard to say how much relief and pleasure a little real sympathy and genuine interest from outsiders would not give to these old crusted characters.

One of the first things a visitor to the workhouse cannot fail to notice is the great difference in the human and social atmosphere that pervades the men's and the women's wards. Especially is this the case where the aged are spending their last days.

On both sides of the House' the wards are much the same. Long and bare, their chief characteristic is their cleanliness. The long walls, painted some sad tone of grey-blue, are broken only by the windows, which are quite destitute of any kind of hangings. Long, bare, well-scrubbed forms stand against the walls, and before them stretch long, bare, well-scrubbed tables, whilst beneath them both is the bare, well-scrubbed floor. Of windows there are many, but the artificial lighting is usually quite inadequate, with the result that on a winter's afternoon the women's ward looks horribly ghostly with so much white deal and so many grey-garbed, still figures seated in the dim light.

When you enter the precincts of masculinity you interrupt a pleasant hum of conversation, and the inhabitants show a lively interest in your presence. If there are no lynx-eyed officials within sight or hearing, they may even offer the lady visitor & small amount of good-natured chaff. But, apart from this, they always greet the stranger with a cheerful Good-day,' and return with interest the new visitor's nod and smile. Any remark you