ountry, their own land supplied them with an immense indemnity. Who
cares for us? Yet we have lost our estates. Who raises a voice for us?
Yet we are at least as innocent as the nobility of France. We sink
among no sighs except our own. And if they give us sympathy--what
then? Sympathy is the solace of the Poor; but for the Rich, there is
Compensation."

"Is that Harriet?" said his wife moving in her bed.

The Hand-Loom weaver was recalled from his reverie to the urgent misery
that surrounded him.

"No!" he replied in a quick hoarse voice, "it is not Harriet."

"Why does not Harriet come?"

"She will come no more!" replied the weaver; "I told you so last night:
she can bear this place no longer; and I am not surprised."

"How are we to get food then?" rejoined his wife; "you ought not to have
let her leave us. You do nothing, Warner. You get no wages yourself; and
you have let the girl escape."

"I will escape myself if you say that again," said the weaver: "I have
been up these three hours finishing this piece which ought to have been
taken home on Saturday night."

"But you have been paid for it beforehand. You get nothing for your
work. A penny an hour! What sort of work is it, that brings a penny an
hour?"

"Work that you have often admired, Mary; and has before this gained a
prize. But if you don't like the work," said the man quitting his loom,
"let it alone. There was enough yet owing on this piece to have allowed
us to break our fast. However, no matter; we must starve sooner or
later. Let us begin at once."

"No, no, Philip! work. Let us break our fast come what may."

"Twit me no more then," said the weaver resuming his seat, "or I throw
the shuttle for the last time."

"I will not taunt you," said his wife in a kinder tone. "I was wrong; I
am sorry; but I am very ill. It is not for myself I speak; I want not to
eat; I have no appetite; my lips are so very parched. But the children,
the children went supperless to bed, and they will wake soon."

"Mother, we ayn't asleep," said the elder girl.

"No, we aynt asleep, mother," said her sister; "we heard all that you
said to father."

"And baby?"

"He sleeps still."

"I shiver very much!" said the mother. "It's a cold day. Pray shut the
window Warner. I see the drops upon the pane; it is raining. I wonder if
the persons below would lend us one block of coal."

"We have borrowed too often," said Warner.

"I wish there were no such thing as c