with a nice consideration for his taste. Little wonder he goes about with a contented air and faces the world cheerily.

The portions of food served at the Lainz restaurant are but small, it is true: 54 ounces of beef, mutton, or veal-and that is counted a large portion-does not make much show when lying on a plate; and a great, strong navvy would, no doubt, scoff at it were it offered to him after a hard day's toil. But at Lainz there are no great, strong navvies, no hard toilers. On the contrary, there are only feeble old men and women who, having done their work in life, have joined the ranks of the onlookers-a point which must be borne well in mind in judging of the supply of food there. And for feeble, old onlookers even 5 oz. of anything solid is probably more than they can digest; for what they require, so far as food is concerned, is quality, not quantity. A single ounce of something they can eat and enjoy-something soft and savory-does them more good than a pound of anything too hard for their stumps of teeth, and not piquant enough for their taste. This is a fact

which our workhouse managers seem quite unable to comprehend, unluckily alike for workhouse inmates and for ratepayers.

There is hardly an old woman in an English workhouse who does not receive twice as much solid food every day as she can possibly eat. I have seen again and again both old men and old women leave on their plates a good half of the dinners dealt out to them; I have seen, too, old women smuggle the whole of the beef given them into their pockets, in the hope, perhaps, of being able to eat it unseen later in the day. More food is wasted in many a workhouse, in the course of a week, than at Lainz in the course of Were there any real waste at a year. all indeed at Lainz, it would be quite

impossible either to sell good food at the price at which it is sold in the restaurant, or to provide it for the inmates who are on full rations at the cost at which it is provided. For the full cost of the food of these old people: the cost of their morning coffee and roll; their dinner of soup, meat, vegetables, and pudding; their afternoon coffee and cake; and their supper of soup and vegetables or pudding is only 6d. per head a day.

To be able to feed the inmates at Lainz so extremely well as they are fed, at so small a cost as 6d, a day each, is certainly a triumph in its way, one of which Vienna has good reason to be proud, especially as it is due solely to skilful organization and good management. Food of the same quality and quantity could hardly be provided at double the cost were it not that the commissariat at Lainz is worked together with commissariat of all the Poor-law institutions in Vienna; were it not also that the working of it is entirely in the hands of trained officials, experts in catering and cooking, who know exactly where the cheapest and best materials are to be obtained, and how they can be used most profitably. If these old people who dine well, nay, daintily, every day cost the Vienna ratepayers less for their food than some of our poorly fed workhouse inmates cost us, it is simply because their commissariat is organized on strict business lines, and is worked entirely by business men; whereas the commissariat of our workhouses is as a rule not organized at all, and is worked by amateurs, who may perhaps know nothing whatever about the value of provisions, although they have sometimes, unluckily for ratepayers, friends who are provision merchants. Were contracts given out by the officials in Vienna in the reckless fashion in which they are sometimes given out by Boards of Guardians here, were ama

teurs left to do the catering there as they are here, and the first-comer to do the cooking, either the old people's fare would soon become more meagre, or the ratepayers would find their burden waxing still more heavy. Provisions, it must not be forgotten, are every whit as dear in Vienna as in London; it can therefore be owing only to the skill with which the buying is done, and the infinite trouble that is taken with the cooking, that all these savory little dishes are provided at the price at which they are provided at Lainz.

Vienna has in addition to Lainz five other old-age homes; and they, instead of each being worked separately, as our workhouses are, are all worked together with Lainz and the other Poorlaw institutions, a fact which in itself contributes in a marked degree to keep down not only kitchen expenses, but expenses of every kind. What percentage could "Lyons" pay, one wonders, were each Lyons' shop worked separately. Although each institution has, of course, its own staff, the staffs of all the institutions are under the direction, surveillance, and control of a section of the Magistrat, i.e. the paid expert officials whom the Municipality appoint to carry on for them the business of the town. One of the Magistiat, the Institutions' Director, is personally responsible to the Burgomaster, and through him to the ratepayers, for every penny that is spent at Lainz, as at all the old-age homes and other institutions for the adult poor; and the manager of each institution is responsible to him for the work of that institution. As the Director goes about from home to home he is able to compare the expenditure of one with that of another, and thus to detect at once if there is waste, or if in any way things are going wrong. If any of the inmates have complaints to make against the home officials, they make them to

him; while if any either of the inmates or the officials have complaints to make against him, they send them to the Burgomaster, through a Letter-box which he may not touch, and which is so placed that they can slip their letters into it unnoticed. Once a month the Director holds a meeting at Lainz for the purpose of talking things over with the doctors, the manager, and the clergyman, and of listening to any suggestions they may have to make. mates who wish to come and talk things over with him are free to do so on these occasions, and he makes a point of listening with attention to any suggestions they may offer, and of acting on them whenever he can.

In

The Magistrat provide whatever is required at Lainz, boots and shoes as well as pots and pans and soap. As the supplies are bought for all the institutions together, and therefore in huge quantities, they are obtained of course at a much lower price than they could be obtained were they bought for each institution separately. Besides, owing to the scale on which they do their business, the Magistrat are able to provide each institution with exactly what it requires; and, being experts in their work, they know exactly what it does require, and what quantity. There is practically no chance, therefore, of provisions or anything else being either wasted or purloined as perquisites. There is no chance either of the drafting in of articles of inferior quality being connived at. The Commission system, which has wrought such havoc with rate-payers' money in some English unions, could not exist at Lainz, as the officials who work the home have no voice in deciding where its supplies shall come from-they do not as a rule even know where they do come from.

The full cost per head at Lainz is 18. 5d. a day; and of this, 6d. covers, as we have seen, the cost of food, while

5d. pays the rent, i.e. the interest on the money spent on building and furnishing the institution. The remaining 6d. goes in buying clothes and other necessaries for the inmates, in heating and lighting the institution, and keeping it up generally, in defraying the laundry expenses, and in paying the salaries of the officials and servants, and the grant to the Nursing Sisters who are attached to the hospital and infirmary pavilions. Five pence per head for rent is of course a heavy charge. one out of all proportion to the 6d. for food, and the other 6d. for everything else. The blame for this, however, does not rest in the Director or his officials; homes that would have served their purpose equally well might have been built at two-thirds of the cost of Lainz, had not Vienna allowed its love of sumptuous mansions to get the better of its economy. If on the one hand the charge for housing be high, on the other, the charge for administration is extremely low. The full expenditure at Lainz the year I was there was 82,2501. The expenditure on provisions was 25,5711., on lighting and heating 6,4891., on clothes, bed linen, &c., 4,174l., while on administration, i.e. salaries of officials, wages, and rations of servants. exclusive of the grant to the Nursing Sisters, it was 6,0071., or only 71-3 per cent. of the whole expenditure. Thus this huge institution, where there were then some 3,330 old people, most of whom were in feeble health, living in great comfort, is administered at a less cost than many a third-rate English workhouse. Of the money spent on indoor relief in London, 64 per cent. goes in defraying the cost of administration.

Administration at Lainz would undoubtedly be a much heavier charge than it is, were it not that, as all the inmates are respectable, or at any rate demean themselves as if they were, there is no necessity for officials to

maintain order among them. There is only one attendant on each floor; and he, or she, must, besides taking care of the old people, keep all the rooms on the floor clean with such help as they choose to give him. Inmates requiring special nursing are lodged in the hospital or the infirmary pavilion, where they are taken charge of by the Sisters.

There are old-age homes in Austria, where the cost per head is lower than at Lainz, where it ranges from 18. to 18. 2d. a day; but there is no home, so far as I know, where a better return is obtained for the money as a whole that is spent there. For at Lainz the old people are certainly well cared for in all ways; not only are they well fed and well clothed, but they are well watched over and kept out of harm's way when in health, and are nursed both skilfully and tenderly when ill. What is more important still, perhaps, they are humored and much made of, their prejudices are respected, and heed is paid to their individual likes and dislikes and wishes. All this entails much trouble of course on the officials, much taking of thought; but it entails no expense on the ratepayers. 18. 5d. per head a day is not too high a price to pay, surely, for securing peace and comfort in their latter days for worthy old men and women who are resting only because they no longer have the strength to work. The most worthless of old paupers in a London Union costs his fellows some 28. a day, unless he chance to be in the infirmary ward. in which case he costs them considerably

more.

We should be the gainers not the losers even financially, it must be noted, were we to act on the advice given both in the Majority Report and the Minority of the Poor Law Royal Commission, and transfer all the decent old folk, who are now living miserably in workhouses, to old-age homes. where they would have the chance at

We

any rate of living happily. might even, without being one penny the poorer, organize in every home a restaurant as at Lainz, and thus secure for the inmates the never-failing satisfaction of ordering their own dinners. And what a difference these homes, if we had them, would make to the respectable poor. As things are, even old-age pensioners, when too feeble to live alone, must, unless they have relatives with whom they can live, go to the workhouse, where life is for them The Cornhill Magazine.

CHAPTER II.

THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVE

NESS.

A fortnight had elapsed. The anteroom of the Convent on that early forenoon in late July was the scene of as many curiosities, pleasurable wonders, reserved admirations, and mute surprises as ten male bosoms are capable of sustaining.

The senior majors of the regiments in garrison were there to report to their commander-in-chief the morning states of their commands as shown upon the parades just dismissed.

There was Stokes of the Artillery, and Jessop of the 56th, Kellett of the 39th, and de Sélincourt of De la Motte's, Menzies of the 73rd (McLeod's), and others, good men and true, who were to stand starkly enough in the testing time that was at hand, but whose names have small meaning to-day. Among them was one whom we have seen before and whom we shall have more to do with anon.

They had come in twos and threes, expecting nothing out of the common. Conceive, then, their surprise at find

ing themselves forestalled, the levée not yet opened, the door of the Governor's room closed to them, and His Excellency reported to be in conference with a merchant captain and some civilian. So said the Governor's orderly, adding in an undertone that a third member of the party was still awaiting an audience; the man's eye decorously directing his interrogator to a corner occupied by a lady.

A lady, no less. Now, ladies were few at Gibraltar and, as it happened, not one of the ten majors was married. A lady;-the bluff masculine greetings bandied about the room in the modulated tones demanded by that closed door were made and were succeeded by a self-conscious pause in the conversation, a hiatus which extended to a helpless silence, absurd and banal, for which each of the ten fell silently to blaming the other nine. Muted voices came from the inner room; the minutes ran, yet none spake; nor did the lady's dropped veil and downcast eyes afford an opening, whilst with this petticoated stranger for auditor it seemed indecorous to moot a besieged garrison's one subject

of conversation-the price of beef.

A lady, obviously young, and graciously shaped, and almost certainly pretty, nay beautiful; every man of them whose seat permitted him to use his eyes without offence was ready to swear that the lady was a beauty. (Would she but raise her veil!) The softly rounded and delicately tintea cheek impressed by her little hand gave warrant for the inference: so did the fineness of the neck beneath the ear, and the ear itself, overhung by one curling tendril of dark hair, setting off its translucency and modelling, just the perfect double spiral, suggestive of a fallen elm-leaf. Ah, men, men! How each of those good fellows sate thinking his own thoughts and cursing his luck, and shyly looked and softly longed, wishing everything were wholly different, and that she, and that he, and . . . for this lady sitting there so stilly, cheek upon hand, and with eyes that never were lifted, was sad, as it seemed, and was without doubt one of those woman-creatures whom our Lord God, the Master Potter, throws but once in a way, and who, when they come from His wheel, whether they will or no, stir the pulses of every man who looks upon them. And still the voices came dully from behind the door.

Then from outside too came sounds, a softly whistled air, an Irish quickstep, and the ponderous but elastic tread of a strong and heavy man; the eleventh major, Boyle of Hardenberg's Hanoverians, strode into the room, and glanced about him.

The lady in her corner started and raised her eyes; he, coming as he came from the brightness without, noticed nothing, but the rest saw that she had lifted her veil and had arisen, and was moving from her corner towards the last comer, with outstretched, tremulous hands and the quick, small steps of the timid-"Con!" Her voice filled

the room, its vibrant contralto thrilled all hearers like a plucked harpstring. The hearts of ten of the men rose to their throats. "Husband!" she cried, low yet piercingly: it was now the G string of a fine violin beneath the bow of a master, an appealing crescendo. It was borne in upon the hearts of the ten that here was a tragedy. But the actor whose cue it manifestly was made strange work of his part. The man's great jowl drew forward, his brows came together and darkened, his eyes sparkled, his cheeks crimsoned. With an unpardonable oath he swung upon his heel, giving the lady his shoulder as he sought to leave the room. She, on her part, had reached him, had him by the sleeve, by the skirt as he shook himself free. He stepped back, dragging her with him: oversetting her balance, she was now upon her knees, her beautiful face awork and pleading, her white column of throat convulsed. And all this had befallen in some five ticks o' the clock.

"As strange a story as ever I lis tened to," said the Governor, and indulged himself with snuff. His Excellency was a large, bluff-faced, strongly-built man in middle life, Scottish by descent, by degree a baronet of the United Kingdom, and a General by rank, and, by the providence of Almighty God, at this moment in charge of the Rock of Gibraltar for King George, the third of the name. What was his outward seeming in later life when, famous and ennobled, you may see for yourself by studying the great Reynolds in the National Gallery. “The brick-red Titan with the Key." men call it, and, certes, it has given many of us the impression that though force or fate might conceivably have torn arm from shoulder, or hand from wrist, while life lasted that key neither should, might, nor could in any wise be wrenched, twisted, or cut