was in his mother's arms, and laid him on
the rug, then lifted the bitterly weeping Letty, placed her on the
sofa, and knelt beside her--not humbly to entreat her pardon, but, as
was his wont, to justify himself by proving that all the blame was
hers, and that she had wronged him greatly in driving him to do such a
thing. This for apology poor Letty, never having had from him fuller
acknowledgment of wrong, was fain to accept. She turned on the sofa,
threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and clung to him with an
utter forgiveness. But all it did for Tom was to restore him his good
opinion of himself, and enable him to go on feeling as much of a
gentleman as before.

Reconciled, they turned to the baby. He was pale, his eyes were closed,
and they could not tell whether he breathed. In a horrible fright, Tom
ran for the doctor. Before he returned with him, the child had come to,
and the doctor could discover no injury from the fall they told him he
had had. At the same time, he said he was not properly nourished, and
must have better food.

This was a fresh difficulty to Letty; it was a call for more outlay.
And now their landlady, who had throughout been very kind, was in
trouble about her own rent, and began to press for part at least of
theirs. Letty's heart seemed to labor under a stone. She forgot that
there was a thing called joy. So sad she looked that the good woman,
full of pity, assured her that, come what might, she should not be
turned out, but at the worst would only have to go a story higher, to
inferior rooms. The rent should wait, she said, until better days. But
this kindness relieved Letty only a little, for the rent past and the
rent to come hung upon her like a cloak of lead.

Nor was even debt the worst that now oppressed her. For, possibly from
the fall, but more from the prolonged want of suitable nourishment and
wise treatment, after that terrible night, the baby grew worse. Many
were the tears the sleepless mother shed over the sallow face and
wasted limbs of her slumbering treasure--her one antidote to countless
sorrows; and many were the foolish means she tried to restore his
sinking vitality.

Mary had written to her, and she had written to Mary; but she had said
nothing of the straits to which she was reduced; that would have been
to bring blame upon Tom. But Mary, with her fine human instinct, felt
that things must be going worse with her than before; and, when she
found that her re