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and violent speaking. Thin were the women too, thin and weary, with eyes in which utter lassitude strove against enthusiasm, and backs which ached as they rested. They had come from their labours, as seamstresses and milliners, as shop-girls and laundry-maids, and, instead of enjoying a well-won rest, were devoting their few hours of freedom to the furtherance of an ideal which many clever men have derided. Verily it is well for the world that abstract truth is not the measure of right and wrong, of joy and sorrow.

The Captain gave a few directions to the band and then proceeded to business. They were silent men and women in private life. The world was far too grave a matter for them to talk idly. It was only in the streets that speech came thick and fast; here they were as silent as sphinxes—sphinxes a little tired, not with sitting but with going to and fro on the earth.

"Where are we going?" asked one woman.

The Captain considered for a minute ere he replied. "Down by the Modern Wharves," he said, "then up Blind Street and Gray Alley to Juke's Buildings, where we can stop and speak. You know the place, friend Leather?"

"Do I know my own dwellin'?" asked the man thus addressed in a surprised tone. "Wy, I've lived there off an' on for twenty year, and I could tell some tyles o' the plyce as would make yer that keen you couldn't wait a minute but must be off doin' Christ's work."

"We'll be off now," said the Captain, who had no desire for his assistant's reminiscences. "I'll go first with the flag and the rest of you can come in rank. See that you sing out well, for the Lord has much need of singing in these barren lands." The desultory band clattered down the wooden stair into the street.

Once here the Captain raised the hymn. It was "Oh, haven'tI been