grizzly; his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman's face was
wrinkled; her two remaining teeth protruded over her under lip;
and her eyes were bright and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look
at either her or the man. They seemed so like the rats he had
seen outside.

'Nobody shall go near her,' said the man, starting fiercely up,
as the undertaker approached the recess. 'Keep back! Damn you,
keep back, if you've a life to lose!'

'Nonsense, my good man,' said the undertaker, who was pretty well
used to misery in all its shapes. 'Nonsense!'

'I tell you,' said the man: clenching his hands, and stamping
furiously on the floor,--'I tell you I won't have her put into
the ground. She couldn't rest there. The worms would worry
her--not eat her--she is so worn away.'

The undertaker offered no reply to this raving; but producing a
tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the
body.

'Ah!' said the man: bursting into tears, and sinking on his
knees at the feet of the dead woman; 'kneel down, kneel down
--kneel round her, every one of you, and mark my words! I say
she was starved to death. I never knew how bad she was, till the
fever came upon her; and then her bones were starting through the
skin. There was neither fire nor candle; she died in the
dark--in the dark! She couldn't even see her children's faces,
though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged for her in