wards excited our
interest.

They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, and his mother, a lady of
about fifty, or it might be less. The mother wore a widow's weeds, and
the boy was also clothed in deep mourning. They were poor--very poor;
for their only means of support arose from the pittance the boy earned,
by copying writings, and translating for booksellers.

They had removed from some country place and settled in London; partly
because it afforded better chances of employment for the boy, and partly,
perhaps, with the natural desire to leave a place where they had been in
better circumstances, and where their poverty was known. They were proud
under their reverses, and above revealing their wants and privations to
strangers. How bitter those privations were, and how hard the boy worked
to remove them, no one ever knew but themselves. Night after night, two,
three, four hours after midnight, could we hear the occasional raking up
of the scanty fire, or the hollow and half-stifled cough, which indicated
his being still at work; and day after day, could we see more plainly
that nature had set that unearthly light in his plaintive face, which is
the beacon of her worst disease.

Actuated, we hope, by a higher feeling than mere curiosity, we contrived
to establish, first an acquaintance, and then a close intimacy, with the
poor strangers. Our worst fears were realised; the boy was sinking fast.
Through a part of the winter, and the whole of the following spring and
summer, his labours were unceasingly prolonged: and the mother attempted
to procure needle-work, embroidery--anything for bread.

A few shillings now and then, were all she could earn. The boy worked
steadily on; dying by minutes, but never once giving utterance to
complaint or murmur.

One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay our customary visit to the
invalid. His little remaining strength had been decreasing rapidly for
two or three days preceding, and he was lying on the sofa at the open
window, gazing at the setting sun. His mother had been reading the Bible
to him, for she closed the book as we entered, and advanced to meet us.

'I was telling William,' she said, 'that we must manage to take him into
the country somewhere, so that he may get quite well. He is not ill, you
know, but he is not very strong, and has exerted himself too much
lately.' Poor thing! The tears that streamed through her fingers, as
she turned aside, as if