Mrs Jakes had been fumbling in her pocket, and extracted a penny,
which she pressed on me.

"It's little enough, mister," she said.

Then, as I tried to return it: "Nay, I've enough, and yours is
poor paid work."

I hope I shall always be able to keep that penny; and as I watched
the three going down the dusty white road, with the child in the
middle, I thanked God for the Brotherhood of the Poor.



CHAPTER IV



Yesterday a funeral passed, from the work-house at N-, a quaint
sepulture without solemnities. The rough, ungarnished coffin of
stained deal lay bare and unsightly on the floor of an old market-
cart; a woman sat beside, steadying it with her feet. The husband
drove; and the most depressed of the three was the horse, a broken-
kneed, flea-bitten grey. It was pathetic, this bringing home in
death of the old father whom, while he lived, they had been too
poor to house; it was at no small sacrifice that they had spared
him that terror of old age, a pauper's grave, and brought him to
lie by his wife in our quiet churchyard. They felt no emotion,
this husband and wife, only a dull sense of filial duty done,