This family had been driven from house to house, by increasing necessity, till they had sunk at last into a dingy little hovel, up a dark court, in one of the poorest parts of the town, where they huddled together about a fireless grate to keep one another warm.

They're having the time of their lives with an up-to-date oil stove and a couple of fireless cookers and some thermos bottles and things.

He who has never gone hungry about the world, with a strong love of independence in his heart, seeking eagerly for work from day to day, and coming home night after night to a foodless, fireless house, and a starving family, disappointed and desponding, with the gloom of destitution deepening around him, can never fully realise what the feelings of such a man may be from anything that mere words can tell.

" They "went careful," stealing up the steps and entering with caution; but they found nothing more alarming than the four bare walls, the ash-strewn, fireless hearth, the musty smell of a long-unoccupied house.

One evening, as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his fireless pipe in his hand, the old Colonel's eyes fell full upon his own, and rested there.

For they though they had brands burning yet kindled not the seed of flame, but with fireless rites they made a grove on the hill of the citadel.

They sat down in the fireless study, and like the room, it was some time before the conversation thawed out.

The long trek had lasted all day, to be followed by the fireless supper (how one longs for the hot tea at night!), and the deep sleep that comes to exhausted man as soon as he gets into his blankets.

Cold snow drifts deep Around the fireless cot, and blocks the door; The night-storm howls a dirge o'er moss and moor!

" He died there, with nothing to lie upon but the ground, and nothing to cover him, in that fireless hovel.

It cannot last long before they beg to be excused the liberty, &c., and like the countryman with the golden goose, you get a cold, fireless parlour, or a colder hall reception for your importunity; and, perchance, the silver ore being all gone, you must put up with the French plate.