a dark night. The traveller, cheered
by its beams, forgot the blackness and gloom of the surrounding
atmosphere.

How distinctly I can recal that plain, earnest face, after the long
lapse of years! The dark, sallow cheeks; the deep, sunken, pitiful,
pleading eyes; those intelligent, deep-set, iron-grey eyes, which served
her for a tongue, and were far more eloquent than speech, as they
gleamed from beneath her strongly-marked, jet black eyebrows; the thin
lips that seldom unclosed to give utterance to what was passing in her
mind, and that never smiled, yet held such a treasure of pearls within.
Nature had so completely separated her from her kind, that mirth would
have appeared out of place. She was plain in form and feature, but the
beauty of the soul enshrined in that humble misshapen tenement, shed
over her personal deformities a spiritual and holy light.

From the time of her father's death, Mary had worked steadily at her
needle to support herself and the rest of the family. The constant
assiduity with which she plied her task, greatly increased the
projection of her shoulder, and brought on an occasional spitting of
blood, which resulted from a low, hacking cough. The parish doctor who
attended her bed-ridden mother, and who felt interested in her good,
dutiful child, assured her that she must give up her sedentary
employment, or death would quickly terminate her labour.

"But how then," asked Mary, "can I contribute to the support of the
family? My mother's helpless condition requires my constant exertions.
If I cease to work, she must starve."

The good doctor suggested respectable service as a more remunerative and
healthier occupation.

"Alas!" said Mary, "to go into service is impossible. Who will hire a
domestic who is in delicate health,--is deformed, and to strangers
unintelligible? You, sir, have known me from a child. You understand my
broken words. You never hurry me, so that I can make you comprehend the
meaning of my jargon. But who else would have the patience to listen to
my uncouth sounds?"

The doctor sighed, and said that she was right, that going out would
only expose her to constant mortification and ridicule; and he felt
sorry that his own means were so limited, and his family so large, that
he could only afford to keep one servant, and that an active, stirring,
healthy woman, able to execute, without much bodily fatigue, her
multitudinous daily tasks. He left the cottage with regret;