of drink for them by the nurses, will be unheard-of enormities. One indirect effect of really good hospital nursing ought never to be forgotten. The poor would themselves be taught how to nurse by what they experience in the Infirmary, and thus a blessing of untold value would be communicated to the households of the less favored classes.

Here the question will naturally be asked,-How far have the poor been really served by this institution? how far has it really supplied gratuitous nursing? In giving the answer, it must be remembered that there are two classes of what may be called gratuitous nursing. Some of those who do not seem poor are in fact the poorest. There is no truer charity than to afford skilful and patient attendance, in times of sickness, to families whose means are straitened. The professed intention of meeting such wants as these is common to this establishment and to the London institutions. This is a sufficient reply to the objection that in the case before us, subscriptions have been obtained from the rich for the purpose of providing nurses for the rich. But again, similar assistance has been afforded, without any payment at all, to those who are in actual poverty. In the first Report express mention was made of strictly gratuitous assistance afforded to the poor. From the third Report (p. 5) I quote the following sentence :"Three cases have been attended gratuitously, extending over thirteen weeks, in addition to visits to poor people made by the nurses during the time of their residence in the home, and when their services have not been required elsewhere;" and I believe I am quite correct in stating that at the close of the current year it will be found that more than thirty weeks of such attendance will have been given during the twelvemonths.

Thus I think a case has been made out for the continued support which is afforded by subscriptions and donations. Still, the institution will not thoroughly realise its idea till it is self-supporting, and not only self-supporting, but so far beyond the point of selfsupport as to be available largely for the poor. It is interesting and important to notice every step towards this position of self-support, for the domestic expense requisite for twenty nurses would not be much increased for forty. At present the case stands thus for the three years which have elapsed since the opening of the Institution. 1855.

No. of nurses (excluding probationers)
Subscriptions and donations.

Nurses' receipts.

1857.

1856.

6

10

18

£275

£125

£62

In the present year, the nurses' receipts will probably reach the This shows a satisfactory advance in

sum of about £600.*

the earnings of the Institution, and this side of the

question is

In 1856 the

* The reports of St. John's House show a similar history. donations and the receipts were respectively about £1100 and £800, in 1857 about £600 and £1700.

understated, for (though a bargaining spirit has in some instances been exhibited, unworthy of those who could well afford gratefully to recognise the benefits they have received) it must be added that some of the donations are the result of gratitude for service—so that really there is much ground for encouragement and good reason for continued support.

This is by no means a local question. Nurses go from this Institution to great distances. There is no reason why donations should not come from a distance. There is every reason why sympathy in such a work should travel far and promote similar undertakings elsewhere-and this Association seems precisely the organization adapted for such communication of sympathy, and such impulse to efforts for the relief of the sick.

(27)

V.-STILL LIFE.

A PASTORAL.

THE village of Uppingham is a very small place, but, contrary to the general rule, it does not boast great things, being as modest a little village as any in the land. You will find it somewhere on the south-east coast if you search diligently, but we warn you it must be a diligent search, for it is undoubtedly as retired a spot as the veriest recluse could desire.

Our state is an enviable one, for we reap all the blessings of rural life, while at the same time we enjoy (thanks to our iron roads) nearly all the advantages of modern improvements and the London luxuries of a railway, a local paper, plenty of flowers with long unpronounceable names, hooped petticoats, and a daguerreotypist who for the last three weeks, under the specious plea of taking our likenesses, has been quietly pocketing our money and distorting our faces.

At the time of our first acquaintance with Uppingham it might have contained eight hundred inhabitants, though perhaps that is rather an under than an over statement. But the truth is, that, happy and contented as the villagers then were, theirs was such a state of semi-barbarism (awful to contemplate, though remarkably pleasant as a matter of every-day life) that it makes it a very difficult matter for us to be certain on the subject of our rural populalation. For though the census was taken soon after we came, and the records of all registers, both parochial and private, were carefully searched, and we gave a true and particular account of our ages, and honorably declared our rank, calling, or professional occupations, though we carefully counted and duly numbered the vines upon our walls and olive branches around our tables, yet truth compels us to confess that the result of all our calculations, confessions, and registrations, was never published in the village, so that our numerical force was never perfectly known, except to the collectors of the census tables and to certain antiquated divers into the abyss of parliamentary reports,-after which explanation we most sincerely hope no great surprise will be felt at our extreme ignorance on this interesting point.

Well, be the state of the population what it may, every one allows that our village is the quaintest, quietest, cleanest nest of houses for many miles round. Neither is it devoid of beauty, for the houses being ancient are nearly all gabled and interlaced with wood-work, frosted here and there with whitewash, and stand in such nooks and crooks, and at such angles (anything but right angles you may be sure) that we should tremble for the temper, if not for the reason, of any London surveyor who contemplated paying us a visit. As to our locality, what with the chalk cliffs to

the right, the swelling and undulating meadows that slope down to the water, the old ballast wharf running out into the river, which makes such a sweep by us that it forms a miniature bay, the empty chalk pits where so many of our cottagers dwell, the grand old Roman road with the red sand banks on either side, down whose dusty path many a legion has tramped and many a happy pilgrim sauntered,-what with Holmwood to the left, and the strange towerlike castle set upon the hill, with its still stranger light gleaming like some spectre flame from the very verge of the horizon, it would be possible to go further in search of the picturesque and fare

worse.

We, that is I and my brother, have lived a great many years at Uppingham,-not all our lives, for until the death of our mother our home was at Crowhurst,—a fine old farm which looked (as indeed was true) as if somebody's grandfather lived there still.

Our house stood on a hill, and was surrounded, at least on three sides, by fruit trees planted by my great-grandfather. I see it now as clearly as if I had been there yesterday. For miles round I do not believe there was such a yard as ours. There was a pond in the front of the house near the road, and two great trees, elms, if I recollect rightly, grew by its side; so that the ducks and geese, a mighty cackling brood whose exact number nobody ever cared to know, luxuriated in shelter during the hottest summer days. The barns were brown with age and full to repletion, too full indeed by half to please us when we fancied a game at hide and seek or follow my leader; and it was an undisputed fact that our waggons carried the best barley, the finest wheat, and the earliest vegetables to market.

I am an old woman now, quietly going the way of all the earth. My first grey hairs came twenty years ago, so you may guess by that my time is well nigh come. The weakness that loves to ruminate over the past you understand and will pardon—the aged ever love to moralise on the changes, be they ever so few, in which they have played a part.

Just now I am thinking of my first sorrow. I was down late that morning; Nancy had neglected calling us, I know now how busily she was engaged: but when I did get up the sun was high in the heavens, and the strong light streaming into my little window, making the room unpleasantly close. I had overslept myself, that was very certain; but, child as I was, I remember that I neither cried nor called for help, but commenced, and after many failures completed dressing myself, upon which I hastened into the parlor overlooking the lawn, where breakfast was spread, the chairs placed, and the room empty. The loaf had been cut, and a large cup which grandfather always used was half full of cold tea; father's plate and William's were both clean, and the place was very quiet. It was all strange: I crept slowly up to my mother's door, but as it was shut I went away, for I knew she was ill, and it

was against the rule for me to be with her unless she sent for me. Then I wandered into the kitchen: the doors were all open, the fire nearly out, and no Nancy to be found; so I went back to the parlor, and amused myself by watching the farm laborers. They were all in the orchard: the long white ladders stood by the trees, the men were busy picking the fruit, while the women sorted and carefully packed it in baskets with fern leaves or straw for the market. What a glorious day it was: the roses were out in perfection, so were the lilies; the lavender was just budding, and the walls were covered with yellow stone crop and crimson snap-dragon. I do not know whether it was because I stood watching so long, but I never remember seeing so many bees as I saw on that day flying in and out the rows of mint, marjoram, and thyme that bordered the path leading to the little gate at the bottom of the garden. At length I grew tired of watching, and tired of waiting too I suspect; so off with my doll I started, to breakfast upon gooseberries and currants. The first person I met was grandfather sitting alone in the porch, and when I told him my troubles, he bade me be a good girl and patted my head. I believe we sat there the best part of that day; at least I know there were long shadows on the lawn when Nancy came running into the porch and carried me into mother's room, where my father was kneeling by her side and weeping over one hand which he held in both of his. William, too, was leaning upon the post of the bed, and my mother seemed the only calm person in the room. I recollect the brightness of her eyes, which were dark like mine, her smile when I came in at the door, and how I patted her shining hair as it lay strewn across the pillow when Nancy held me down to kiss her.

How strange it all seemed in that dim room, and how the long regular swell of the soft heavy air which stirred the curtains above the bed-room window annoyed me. It was quite a relief when the swallows beneath the eaves began to twitter, for many a bird built its nest under the shelter of our roof; mother would never have one disturbed if she could help it. And so, while it was yet day, my young mother went home to the many mansioned house in the city not made with hands, and my father dwelling only upon his own great loss, and forgetting that she was taken from the evil to come, went sorrowing down the vale of years, even to his grave, mourning as one having no hope and refusing to be comforted.

Strange that I can remember this my early introduction to sorrow so vividly, and that memory (capricious instinct!) can paint the very pattern of the paper upon the walls, the position of the bed, and the size of the window, which was bowed and barred with strong irons for our safety, and covered partly with a creeper and partly with a vine, a black vine whose downy leaves, in conjunction with a pin, afforded me innocent amusement for many an hour,—and yet that it should fail to recall even one solitary incident in the next twelve years of my life, which would be a perfectly blank spot in