rew myself on the bed. I passed through a dreadful
night; God knows what I suffered, and how I struggled. The following
Sunday I went to the house of God to pray for light to direct my path.
It seemed like a providence that as I stepped out of church Eric
came towards me; and then there remained not a doubt in my mind. We
were suited to each other in rank and circumstances. He was, even
then, a man of good means. I went up to him, and took his hand, and
said, 'Do you still feel the same for me?' 'Yes; ever and always,'
said he. 'Will you, then, marry a maiden who honors and esteems you,
although she cannot offer you her love? but that may come.' 'Yes, it
will come,' said he; and we joined our hands together, and I went home
to my mistress. The gold ring which her son had given me I wore next
to my heart. I could not place it on my finger during the daytime, but
only in the evening, when I went to bed. I kissed the ring till my
lips almost bled, and then I gave it to my mistress, and told her that
the banns were to be put up for me and the glovemaker the following
week. Then my mistress threw her arms round me, and kissed me. She did
not say that I was 'good for nothing;' very likely I was better then
than I am now; but the misfortunes of this world, were unknown to me
then. At Michaelmas we were married, and for the first year everything
went well with us. We had a journeyman and an apprentice, and you were
our servant, Martha."

"Ah, yes, and you were a dear, good mistress," said Martha, "I
shall never forget how kind you and your husband were to me."

"Yes, those were happy years when you were with us, although we
had no children at first. The student I never met again. Yet I saw him
once, although he did not see me. He came to his mother's funeral. I
saw him, looking pale as death, and deeply troubled, standing at her
grave; for she was his mother. Sometime after, when his father died,
he was in foreign lands, and did not come home. I know that he never
married, I believe he became a lawyer. He had forgotten me, and even
had we met he would not have known me, for I have lost all my good
looks, and perhaps that is all for the best." And then she spoke of
the dark days of trial, when misfortune had fallen upon them.

"We had five hundred dollars," she said, "and there was a house in
the street to be sold for two hundred, so we thought it would be worth
our while to pull it down and build a new one in its place; so it