orgive her, if I have any cause.
I know that she forgives me, and is sorry in her heart. You will not
forget her?'

'Never, Alice!'

'A moment yet. Lay your head so, dear, that as you read I may see the
words in your kind face.'

Harriet complied and read--read the eternal book for all the weary, and
the heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and neglected of this
earth--read the blessed history, in which the blind lame palsied beggar,
the criminal, the woman stained with shame, the shunned of all our
dainty clay, has each a portion, that no human pride, indifference, or
sophistry, through all the ages that this world shall last, can take
away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain reduce--read the ministry of
Him who, through the round of human life, and all its hopes and griefs,
from birth to death, from infancy to age, had sweet compassion for, and
interest in, its every scene and stage, its every suffering and sorrow.

'I shall come,' said Harriet, when she shut the book, 'very early in the
morning.'

The lustrous eyes, yet fixed upon her face, closed for a moment, then
opened; and Alice kissed and blest her.

The same eyes followed her to the door; and in their light, and on the
tranquil face, there was a smile when it was closed.

They never turned away. She laid her hand upon her breast, murmuring the
sacred name that had been read to her; and life passed from her face,
like light removed.

Nothing lay there, any longer, but the ruin of the mortal house on which
the rain had beaten, and the black hair that had fluttered in the wintry
wind.

CHAPTER 59. Retribution

Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull street,
once the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is a great
house still, proof against wind and weather, without breaches in the
roof, or shattered windows, or dilapidated walls; but it is a ruin none
the less, and the rats fly from it.

Mr Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect of the
shapeless rumours that they hear. Cook says our people's credit ain't so
easy shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr Towlinson expects to hear
it reported next, that the Bank of England's a-going to break, or the
jewels in the Tower to be sold up. But, next come the Gazette, and Mr
Perch; and Mr Perch brings Mrs Perch to talk it over in the kitchen, and
to spend a pleasant evening.

As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr Towlinson's main anxi