yourself by going into details. You make me curious to see the lady. Will she favour poor, miserable ‘We, Us and Co.' with one of her attractive visits?"

"Have done with that, Stagey!" growled rather than said the young man who had first spoken, looking threateningly towards the man in the corner bed, who subsided into a mocking whine, and hid his head under the clothes.

No one spoke again, until, half an hour later, a gentle tap was heard at the door, and Grace Sullivan and Miss St George entered, followed by the nurse, with her official bunch of keys hanging at her side.

The man in the corner bed looked curiously towards the door. Time hung heavily on his hands, and so he turned everything into fun. He did not mean to offend the young man by what he had said, only to use up a little material his comments had put into his hands in joke. When he heard the tap at the door he looked eagerly to see who would enter. As Grace came in with her gentle smile, her hands full of the wild flowers she had gathered, he started and turned deathly pale. The man in the next bed noticed it with wonderment; then, when a minute or two afterwards he saw him actually crying, and finally disappear under the bed clothes, he was fairly puzzled.

It was not long before Grace found her way to the corner bed: it had been unoccupied when she was there before.

"Whom have we here?" she said, as she drew near. "A new friend, I see; is it a very suffering one?" As she spoke she bent down over the passive figure. The head was no longer under the clothes, but resting upon the hand on the pillow; the face was that of a somewhat elderly man, judging from the wrinkles, but the brown wavy hair was unchanged in colour, while the moustache alone was touched with grey. As Grace paused by the bed-side, long, deep-drawn breaths proclaimed the occupant to be asleep. She turned to the next bed and asked if the sleeping man were a great sufferer.

"He has his share at times, miss, I. count," was the reply from the old man addressed, "but he's mostly very cheerful."

Grace left her daily paper in this ward with the young man who had fits, asking him to read it aloud to the others, and then to send it down amongst the able-bodied; after which, having left some of her flowers to be arranged in the vase upon the tablea flower vase she had given them more than a year ago, and of which they took the greatest care-she withdrew.

"Who was that poor fellow who was asleep in the corner bed?" she inquired of the nurse as they passed into another ward.

"A very strange kind of individual," was the reply. "He gives his name as 'Dick Turpin.' All we can make out of him is that he belonged to a band of

strolling players, which passed through the town a fortnight ago. He seems to have been left behind on account of some sudden illness-congestion of the lungs. They brought him here on Saturday from one of the lodging-houses in a very weak state, though the doctor thinks recovering. He says the oddest things at times, and makes everybody laugh. I think he must have seen better days."

In the meanwhile the man in the corner bed, hearing the door close upon Grace leaving the ward, awoke from his sleep as suddenly as he had gone off into it, and broke into a laugh very merry, though a little muffled, as if fearful of being heard in the next room. The old man in the next bed looked duly worried.

"Fine fellow you," he said, "sobbing one minute, playing the hypocrite another, and then going off into a fit of laughter. A chap like you ought to have a room to himself, for it's more than flesh and blood can stand!"

"Calm yourself, my friend," was the reply. "You entirely misread my actions; you thought I sobbed, whereas I sneezed; you wondered to see me so quickly asleep, and deemed it feigned, while such is the even tenor of my mind, that I can doze off at a moment's notice. You hear me laugh, and judge me frivolous, when I am only exercising my lungs in a manner both healthy and refreshing!" and, as if no

longer afraid of being heard by the retreating visitors, the man in the corner bed laughed more noisily and heartily than before, until he brought on a fit of coughing, which made him lie back at length upon his pillow, utterly tired and exhausted.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MAN IN THE CORNER BED.

Earth, turning from the sun, brings night to man ;
Man, turning from his God, brings endless night."

YOUNG.

THE man in the corner bed did not recover. Grace found him much worse the next time she visited the Workhouse-three weeks had elapsed, owing to various circumstances, since she was last there. He had been moved into another room- —a little room, with only two beds in it, and he had it all to himself. When Grace went in he was dosing, but her entrance awoke him; he looked up, and a strange expression crossed his face, he beckoned her to him, and whispered, "Will you spare me a moment, I want so much to speak to you."

Grace took her seat beside him, and asked what it was he wished to say.

"I am dying," said the man, "and I am in the midst of strangers; it is as well so, I am only reaping what I have sown-my life has been utterly wasted and dark-what wonder that my death should be in keeping?"