as an object worthy of charity by a liberal donor, and he was brought
in person to justify the recommendation. He was clean, and neat, and
tidily dressed, but evidently in a state of perfect unconsciousness of
everything around him. He had lived once, but it was in times long
past and gone: you might guess him to be what age you chose, but you
could hardly think him older than he was; time, who had stolen his
faculties, had forgotten to wreck the casket that contained them: the
spirit of life had left its tenement, and by some strange mistake, the
animated machine had gone on without it. My neighbour, the watchmaker,
compared him to a clock with the striking-train run down, and the
works rusty beyond repair. He could not thank us for the alms we gave
him, but he did all he could--he winked, and smiled, and tried to make
a bow, but failed in the attempt, and resigned himself cheerfully to
the care of his friends, who carried him off.

Another quiet applicant was a lady, whose natural-born gentility
poverty might obscure but could not conceal. Years of want and
struggling deprivation had dimmed her charms; but they had neither
bowed nor bent her stately form, nor quenched the inherent virtue of
self-respect, nor deprived her of the correct and appropriate diction,
and the winning and courteous expression which once graced a
drawing-room. She was introduced to us by the beadle as Lady W----;
and although draped in very humble and well-worn apparel, she looked
what she was--a gentlewoman in every sense of the word; though beyond
an empty title, she possessed hardly anything in the world. She
answered our inquiries with a natural courtesy, which at least some of
us felt to be a condescension. 'Gentlemen,' she said, 'it is true, as
your attendant states, that I am a lady. In my youth, I married a
titled man. I make no boast of that--it was, indeed, my misfortune. I
was brought up and educated to occupy a station inferior to few: I