a worn and saddened face, passed before her, she shrunk from the latter
alternative, and placing the hand of her child in that of her adopted
mother she said, with the calmness of a settled purpose--"It will make a
sad void in our desolate home, but God has opened your heart to her
before she is left alone, and His goodness shall be my constant theme of
gratitude; you will allow her to come to us every day while her poor
father lives; his pains will be lightened by her presence, and 'twill
comfort me to see the eyes that have beamed upon me these nine long
years, more joyously beaming as I hasten to the end of my pilgrimage.
You will love this kind lady, will you not, my child?" said she to the
little girl, by whom she was again kneeling--"and be to her a dear and
dutiful daughter, if you would please your own parents."

"Love her, dear mother? Who could help loving the beautiful and kind,
and good!--and is she not beautiful, and has she not been kind and good
to me when others did but rail at me, and jostle me down in the crowded
street! Oh! yes, I will indeed love her, very, very dearly!" and she
clung to the hand of the widow that held her own, and caressingly
fondled and kissed it, until her mother laid her gently back upon her
pillow, and arose to return to her home.

CHAPTER IV.

The sick husband lay watching the moonbeams as they came through the
window and played fantastically upon the walls, and his thoughts went
far away to a pleasant spot beneath a group of willows, by a gently
flowing stream, where the moonbeams once played upon the fair face of
his Mary, and he sighed heavily as he reviewed the many changes that had
brought them where they now were. Many a sunny hour came flashing upon
his memory, with its dear and hallowed associations; the early days of
their marriage when their home was green and sylvan--the gathering of
friends on every festive occasion--the birth of their sweet babe that
brought with it such new and blessed ties; and then the sunny hours
departed, and the clouds covered them; the days of sickness came and
their property fled away, and with their wealth went their friends from
them. Weary months of toil in a strange city was thenceforward their
portion; a sick-bed was the strong man's heritage, and days of fasting
and misery and labor devolved on the delicate wife. The child that had
been nursed in the lap of luxury went out into dirty streets to get her
bread from pitying st