he matter, ma'am?" asked Fanny of her, when the harsh landlord
had gone into the house.

"This man is my landlord, and he is turning me out of the house because
I cannot pay him the rent," sobbed the woman. "I wouldn't care, if it
wasn't for poor Jenny."

"Who is Jenny?"

"She is my daughter. She has been sick, very sick, for nearly a year,
and she cannot live much longer. The doctor gave her up six months
ago."

"How old is Jenny?"

"She is fourteen; and she is such a patient child! She never complains
of anything, though I am not able to do much for her," replied the
afflicted mother, as her tears broke forth afresh at the thought of the
sufferer.

"Haven't you any place to go if this man turns you out of the house?"
asked Fanny.

"No, no!" groaned the woman, bursting out into a terrible paroxysm of
grief.

"I know it's hard for you, Mrs. Kent, but it's harder for me to do it
than it is for you to have it done," continued Mr. O'Shane, as he came
out of the house with a rocking chair in his hands.

"O mercy! that is poor Jenny's chair!" almost screamed Mrs. Kent. "What
have you done with her?"

The mother, in her agony, rushed into the house to ascertain if any
harm had come to her suffering daughter, who had been deprived of the
easy chair in which she was accustomed to sit. Fanny was moved to the
depths of her nature--moved as she had never been moved before. She
couldn't have believed that such scenes were real. She had read of them
in romances, and even in the newspapers; but she had never realized
that a man could be so hard as Mr. O'Shane, or that a woman could
suffer so much as Mrs. Kent. Between her grief and indignation she was
almost overwhelmed.

"You are a cruel man," said she, with something like fierceness in her
tones.

"That's very foine for the likes of you to say to the likes of me; but
it don't pay me rint," replied Mr. O'Shane, not as angry as might have
been expected at this interference.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to do such a mean thing!" added
Fanny, her black eyes snapping with the living fire of her indignation.

"Shall I let me own childer starve for another man's childer?" answered
the landlord, who, we must do him the justice to say, was ashamed of
himself.

"How much does the woman owe you?" demanded Fanny.

"A matther of a hundred dollars--for a whole year's rint. Sure, miss,
it isn't many min that would wait a twelvemonth for the rint, and not
get it th