ut the sudden change from living
luxuriously in a great house, to the griping poverty of a cotter's
hovel, had changed, in three short years, the buxom country girl into an
emaciated shadow of her former self, and the sorrowing husband buried
her in her second child-bed. The powers of the parish clapped their
hands; political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a
coarse-featured farmer (he meant no ill), who occasionally had given
Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the
fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Ay, and Heaven take the babies
also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken!
scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as
before, was more mechanical, less high-motived: and many a year of
dreary widowhood he mourned a loss all the greater, though any thing but
bitterer, for the infants so left motherless. To these, now grown into a
strapping youth and a bright-eyed graceful girl, had he been the
tenderest of nurses, and well supplied the place of her whom they had
lost. Neighbours would have helped him gladly--sometimes did; and many
was the hinted offer (disinterested enough, too, for in that match
penury must have been the settlement, and starvation the dower), of
giving them a mother's kindly care; but Roger could not quite so soon
forget the dead: so he would carry his darlings with him to his work,
and feed them with his own hard hands; the farmers winked at it, and
never said a word against the tiny trespassers; their wives and
daughters loved the little dears, bringing them milk and possets; and
holy angels from on high may have oft-times hovered about this rude
nurse, tending his soft innocents a-field, and have wept over the poor
widower and his orphans, tears of happy sorrow and benevolent affection.
Yea, many a good angel has shed blessings on their heads!

Within the last three years, and sixteen from the date of his first
great grief, Roger had again got married. His daughter was growing into
early womanhood, and his son gave him trouble at times, and the cottage
wanted a ruling hand over it when he was absent, and rheumatism now and
then bade him look out for a nurse before old age, and Mary Alder was a
notable middle-aged careful sort of soul, and so she became Mary Acton.
All went on pretty well, until Mrs. Acton began to have certain little
ones of her own; and then the step-mother would break out (a contingency
poor Roge