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I took leave of the old man, the aunt, and the little girl, and drove with the doctor to the woman who had been to see me that morning.

"What misery!" he said; "it's pitiful to see them. And the eldest little girlie, how she looks after them—just like a mother! Wonderful how the Lord helps her! It's a mercy the neighbours don't forsake them, or they'd simply die of hunger, the dear little things!... They are the sort of people it does no harm to help," he added, evidently advising me to do so.

If at least one could get little Nicky placed somewhere! It's awful; one can't leave him for a moment," said she, pointing to the sturdy little two-year old urchin, who with his little sister was merrily laughing at something or other, and evidently did not at all share his aunt's wish.

The eldest girl evidently understood and took in the whole of my conversation with her aunt.

They must get along as best they can. I try to help them, but can't do much. I can't think what's to become of them! I wish they'd die!... If one could only get them into some Orphanage—or at least some of them!

I got out of the sledge, and went towards the house. A woman came out and asked me in. She was the orphans' aunt. I entered a large, clean room; all the children were there, four of them: besides the eldest girl—two boys, a girl, and another boy of about two. Their aunt told me all about the family's circumstances. Two years ago the father had been killed in a mine. The widow tried to get compensation, but failed. She was left with four children; the fifth was born after her husband's death. She struggled on alone as best she could, hiring a labourer at first to work her land. But without her husband things went worse and worse. First they had to sell their cow, then the horse, and at last only two sheep were left. Still they managed to live somehow; but two months ago the woman herself fell ill and died, leaving five children, the eldest twelve years old.

The girl pointed to a brick house, not badly built.

I've come to your Honour, as mother is dead, and we are left orphans—five of us. Help us!... Think of our needs!"

Where do you come from?

No, it's your Honour I want," said the girl to me.

I suppose you're wanted?" I said to the doctor

I made some inquiries about other matters I had to attend to, and then the doctor returned from visiting his patient, and we drove towards the village in which the soldier's wife lived. But before we were out of the first village, a girl of about twelve came quickly across the road towards us.

"She lied! They always do," replied he, with a smile.

"Then why did she say he was the only one?"

The clerk's assistant looked up the particulars, and replied that the woman's husband was not the only man in the family: he had a brother.

The District Elder was not in, nor the clerk, but only the clerk's assistant—a clever lad whom I knew. I asked him about the woman's husband, and why, being the only man in the family, he had been taken as a conscript.

I went into the Police Station, while the doctor attended to his business in that village.

A cow? Oh, no!... Why, we're all starving!" said she, crying, and trembling all over in her tattered coat.

I let her go, and prepared for my customary walk. It turned out that the doctor, who lives with us, was going to visit a patient in the village the soldier's wife had come from, and another patient in the village where the District Police Station is situated, so I joined him, and we drove off together.