describe my sufferings? The balance of my tale is short. I was
forced out of the shelter I occupied because I could not pay the owner
his rent. My oldest child was then ill, and in the bleak night wind,
canopied by heaven alone, I was thrust, homeless, from a shelter owned
by a man whose wealth should have made him pause ere he performed such
an act. With my sick child in my arms I wandered, I knew not where,
until I found she had fainted. Hurrying to a small cabin on the road,
I entered and there discovered an old negro woman. From the lips of a
slave I first heard words of kindness, and for the first time aid was
extended to me. Applying restoratives, my child revived and I waited
until next morning, when I returned once more to ask for aid. A paltry
sum was handed to me, more for the sake of getting rid of the
mendicant than to relieve my distress. I felt that the sum offered was
insufficient to supply the demands of my sick daughter and my starving
boy. I was turning in despair away when my eye lit upon a package of
money resting on the safe. For a moment I hesitated, but the thought
of my children rose uppermost in my mind, and, seizing the package I
hurried from the store."

"So you did take the money," said Harry.

"Yes," she replied, "but it did me little good, for when the doctor
was called he pronounced my daughter beyond medical skill. She died
that evening, and all the use to which the money was appropriated, was
the purchase of a coffin."

"Then the--the--" said Harry, hesitating to use the word theft, "then,
it was not discovered that you had taken the money until your child
was dead and buried."

"No," she said, "listen--my child lay enrobed in her garment of death,
and the sun was fast declining in the west, when Mr. Swartz and two
constables entered the room and arrested me. On my bended knees I
appealed to him not to tear me from the body of my child. Yes," she
continued, excitedly, "I prayed to him in the most abject manner to
leave me until my child was buried. My prayers were unavailing, and
from the window of this cell I witnessed a lonely hearse pass by,
followed by none other than my infant boy and the kind old negro. Oh
God! Oh God!" she went on, bursting into tears and throwing herself on
the wretched pallet in the cell, "my cup of misery was then full, and
I had drained it to the very dregs. I have nothing more to live for
now, and the few days longer I have to spend on earth can be passe