misery had not Dr. Adams's neglect entailed, not alone on his
immediate family, but on that of his brother. Besides, there were
ramifications of distress; he died even more embarrassed than
his brother had at first believed, and some trades-people were
consequently embarrassed; but the deep misery fell upon his children.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Dr. Adams had left Repton with her younger children,
to be the dependants of Mary in London.

It was not until a fatal disease had seized upon her mother, that
Mary ventured to appeal again to her uncle's generosity. "My second
brother," she said, "has out of his small means remitted her five
pounds. My eldest brother seems altogether to have disappeared from
amongst us; finding that his unhappy presence had occasioned so fatal
a separation between his mother and you--a disunion which I saw was
the effect of many small causes, rather than one great one--he left
us, and we cannot trace him. This has broken my poor mother's heart;
he was the cherished one of all her children. My youngest brother has
been for the last month an inmate of one of the hospitals which my
poor father attended for so many years, and where his word was law. My
sister Rosa, she upon whom my poor father poured, if possible, more
of his affection than he bestowed upon me--my lovely sister, of whom,
even in our poverty, I was so proud--so young, only upon the verge of
womanhood--has, you already know, left us. Would to God it had been
for her grave, rather than her destroyer!--a fellow-student of that
poor youth, who, if he dreamt of her dishonour, would stagger like a
spectre from what will be his death-bed to avenge her. Poverty is one
of the surest guides to dishonour; those who have not been tempted
know nothing of it. It is one thing to see it, another to feel it.
Do not think her altogether base, because she had not the strength
of a heroine. I have been obliged to resign my situation to attend
my mother, and the only income we have is what I earn by giving
lessons on the harp and piano. I give, for _two shillings_, the same
instruction for which my father paid half a guinea a lesson; if I did
not I should have no pupils. It is more than a month since my mother
left her bed; and my youngest sister, bending beneath increased
delicacy of health, is her only attendant. I know her mind to be so
tortured, and her body so convulsed by pain, that I have prayed to
God to render her fit for Heaven, and take her from her s