that would be wrong and could do no good. It
is sinful even to feel such a desire."

"How can I help it, mother!" returned Jack indignantly. Then he asked,
"What are we going to do now, mother?"

For some time the poor widow did not reply; then she spoke in a low
tone, as if murmuring to herself, "The last sixpence gone; the cupboard
empty; nothing--nothing left to pawn--"

She stopped short, and glanced hastily at her marriage ring.

"Mother," said Jack, "have you not often told me that God will not
forsake us? Does it not seem as if He _had_ forsaken us now?"

"It only seems like it, darling," returned the widow hurriedly. "We
don't understand His ways. `Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!'"

It seemed as if God were about to test the faith of His servant, for at
that moment a cab drove furiously round the corner of a street and
knocked her down. Jack was overturned at the same time. Recovering
himself, instantly, he found his mother in a state of unconsciousness,
with blood flowing from a deep cut in her forehead. In a state of
semi-bewilderment the poor boy followed the stretcher, on which Mrs
Matterby was carried to the nearest hospital, where he waited while his
mother's injuries were examined.

"My boy," said a young surgeon, returning to the waiting room, and
patting Jack's head, "your mother has been rather badly hurt. We must
keep her here to look after her. I daresay we shall soon make her well.
Meanwhile you had better run home, and tell your father--if, that is--
your father is at home, I suppose?"

"No, sir; father's dead."

"Well then your sister or aunt--I suppose there's some relative at home
older than yourself?"

"No, sir; none but mother an' me," whispered Jack.

"No relations of any kind at all in London?"

"None, sir. We know nobody--at least not many, and they're all
strangers."

"A sad case," murmured the surgeon. "Your mother is poor, I suppose?"

"_Very_ poor, sir."

"But of course you have a home of some sort, somewhere?"

"Yes, it's not far from here."

"Well, them, you'd better go home just now, for you can't see your
mother to-night. We dare not let her speak, but come back early
to-morrow, and you shall hear about her--perhaps see her. Here, put
that in your pocket."

Poor Jack took the shilling which the sympathetic surgeon thrust into
his hand, and ran home in a state bordering on distraction; but it was
not till he entered the shabby little roo