the captain who was to bring it was shipwrecked, and the money was
lost with him."

"Just at that time my dear sweet boy who is sleeping yonder was born.
My husband was struck down by a long heavy illness: for three quarters
of a year I was compelled to dress and undress him. We went back more
and more, and fell into debt. All that we had was sold, and my husband
died. I have worked, and toiled, and striven, for the sake of the
child, and scrubbed staircases, washed linen, clean and coarse alike,
but I was not to be better off, such was God's good will. But He will
take me to Himself in His own good time, and will not forsake my boy."
And she fell asleep.

Towards morning she felt much refreshed, and strong enough, as she
thought, to go back to her work. She had just stepped again into the
cold water, when a trembling and faintness seized her: she clutched at
the air with her hand, took a step forward, and fell down. Her head
rested on the bank, and her feet were still in the water: her wooden
shoes, with a wisp of straw in each, which she had worn, floated down
the stream, and thus Martha found her on coming to bring her some
coffee.

In the meantime a messenger from the mayor's house had been dispatched
to her poor lodging to tell her "to come to the mayor immediately, for
he had something to tell her." It was too late! A barber-surgeon was
brought to open a vein in her arm; but the poor woman was dead.

"She has drunk herself to death!" said the mayor.

In the letter that brought the news of his brother's death, the
contents of the will had been mentioned, and it was a legacy of six
hundred dollars to the glovemaker's widow, who had once been his
mother's maid. The money was to be paid, according to the mayor's
discretion, in larger or smaller sums, to her or to her child.

"There was some fuss between my brother and her," said the mayor.
"It's a good thing that she is dead; for now the boy will have the
whole, and I will get him into a house among respectable people. He
may turn out a reputable working man."

And Heaven gave its blessing to these words.

So the mayor sent for the boy, promised to take care of him, and added
that it was a good thing the lad's mother was dead, inasmuch as she
had been good for nothing.

They bore her to the churchyard, to the cemetery of the poor, and
Martha strewed sand upon her grave, and planted a rose tree upon it,
and the boy stood beside her.

"My dear mother!" he c