relief, she "couldn't for shame" fetch the tickets herself, but
waited outside whilst a friend of hers went in for them. The next
house we visited was a comfortable cottage. The simple furniture was
abundant, and good of its kind, and the whole was remarkably clean.
Amongst the wretched dwellings in its neighbourhood, it shone "like
a good deed in a naughty world." On the walls there were several
Catholic pictures, neatly framed; and a large old-fashioned wooden
wheel stood in the middle of the floor, with a quantity of linen
yarn upon it. Old Stephen I__ and his cosy goodwife lived there. The
old woman was "putting the place to rights" after their noontide
meal; and Stephen was "cottering" about the head of the cellar steps
when we went in. There were a few healthy plants in the windows, and
everything gave evidence of industry and care. The good-tempered old
couple were very communicative. Old Stephen was a weaver of diaper;
and, when he had anything to do, he could earn about eight shillings
a week. "Some can get more than that at the same work," said he;
"but I am gettin' an old man, ye see. I shall be seventy-three on
the 10th of next October, and, beside that, I have a very bad arm,
which is a great hindrance to me." "He has had very little work for
months, now," said his wife; "an' what makes us feel it more, just
now, is that my son is over here on a visit to us, from Oscott
College. He is studying for the priesthood. He went to St John's,
here, in Wigan, for five years, as a pupil teacher; an' he took good
ways, so the principals of the college proposed to educate him for
the Church of Rome. He was always a good boy, an' a bright one, too.
I wish we had been able to entertain him better. But he knows that
the times are again us. He is twenty-four years of age; an' I often
think it strange that his father's birthday and his own fall on the
same day of the month--the 10th of October. I hope we'll both live
to see him an ornament to his profession yet. There is only the