dy wakens from."

"Dat quare sleep, mammy," said a little one. "Oh, but me's could, mammy;
will we eva have blankets?"

The question, though simple, opened up the cheerless, the terrible
future to her view. She closed her eyes, put her hands on them, as if
she strove to shut it out, and shivered as much at the apprehension of
what was before her, as with the chilly blasts that swept through the
windowless house.

"I hope so, dear," she replied; "for God is good."

"And will he get us blankets, mammy?".

"Yes, darlin', I hope so."

"Me id rady he'd get us sometin' to ait fust, mammy; I'm starvin' wid
hungry;" and the poor child began to cry for food.

The disconsolate mother was now assailed by the clamorous outcries of
nature's first want, that of food. She surveyed her beloved little brood
in the feeble light, and saw in all its horror the fearful impress of
famine stamped upon their emaciated features, and strangely lighting up
their little heavy eyes. She wrung her hands, and looking up silently to
heaven, wept aloud for some minutes.

"Childre," she said at length, "have patience, poor things, an' you'll
soon get something to eat. I sent over Nanny Hart to my sisther's, an'
when she comes back yell get something;--so have patience, darlins, till
then."

"But, mother," continued little Atty, who could not understand her
allusion to the sleep from which there is no awakening; "what kind of
sleep is it that people never waken from?"

"The sleep that's in the grave, Atty, dear; death is the sleep I mean."

"An' would you wish to die, mother?"

"Only for your sake, Atty, and for the sake of the other darlins, if
it was the will of God, I would; and," she added, with a feeling of
indescribable anguish, "what have I now to live for but to see you all
about me in misery and sorrow!"

The tears as she spoke ran silently, but bitterly, down her cheeks.

"When I think of what your poor lost father was," she added, "when we
wor happy, and when he was good, and when I think of what he is now--oh,
my God, my God," she sobbed' out, "my manly young husband, what curse
has come over you that has brought you down to this! Curse! oh, fareer
gair, it's a curse that's too well known in the country--it's the curse
that laves many an industrious man's house as ours is this bitther
night--it's the curse that takes away good name and comfort, and honesty
(that's the only thing it has left us)--that takes away the strength o