The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of
consciousness, even at that ebb. For a moment, the closed eye lids
trembled, and the nostril quivered, and the faintest shadow of a smile
was seen.

'Mama!' cried the child sobbing aloud. 'Oh dear Mama! oh dear Mama!'

The Doctor gently brushed the scattered ringlets of the child, aside
from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas how calm they lay there; how
little breath there was to stir them!

Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother
drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the
world.

CHAPTER 2. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that will
sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families

'I shall never cease to congratulate myself,' said Mrs Chick,' on having
said, when I little thought what was in store for us,--really as if I
was inspired by something,--that I forgave poor dear Fanny everything.
Whatever happens, that must always be a comfort to me!'

Mrs Chick made this impressive observation in the drawing-room, after
having descended thither from the inspection of the mantua-makers
upstairs, who were busy on the family mourning. She delivered it for the
behoof of Mr Chick, who was a stout bald gentleman, with a very large
face, and his hands continually in his pockets, and who had a tendency
in his nature to whistle and hum tunes, which, sensible of the indecorum
of such sounds in a house of grief, he was at some pains to repress at
present.

'Don't you over-exert yourself, Loo,' said Mr Chick, 'or you'll be laid
up with spasms, I see. Right tol loor rul! Bless my soul, I forgot!
We're here one day and gone the next!'

Mrs Chick contented herself with a glance of reproof, and then proceeded
with the thread of her discourse.

'I am sure,' she said, 'I hope this heart-rending occurrence will be a
warning to all of us, to accustom ourselves to rouse ourselves, and to
make efforts in time where they're required of us. There's a moral in
everything, if we would only avail ourselves of it. It will be our own
faults if we lose sight of this one.'

Mr Chick invaded the grave silence which ensued on this remark with
the singularly inappropriate air of 'A cobbler there was;' and checking
himself, in some confusion, observed, that it was undoubtedly our own
faults if we didn't improve such melancholy occasions as the present.

'Which might be better improved, I should th