st, as she thought,

"Mayhap both may soon be wanted above!"

Home did not look so bright to her that evening. Something seemed to be
threatening evil, and she sat listless and abstracted, when her mother
came home, looking from the window. She did not even see her mother,
until she put a hand upon each of her shoulders and asked her "if she
was napping?"

"Oh! no, mother, I'm not dozing, and I'm not ill; but there's something
coming to Winnie, I know there is. It isn't long that she'll brighten
the house!" said Nannie, trembling with emotion.

"Don't be foolish, child," said her mother, after she had ascertained
that her precious babe was sleeping sweetly in its cradle, "Winnie's
growing stout and healthy, and it's thankful we should be, instead of
fretting for fear there'll be sorrow to come."

Nannie shook her head mournfully, and took her knitting from the table,
but her heart was more busy with its sad reflections than were her
fingers with the young babe's sock. She did not even notice Pat much
that evening; but merely took the great apple that he handed her with a
quiet "thank ye;" and then relapsed into her silent and thoughtful mood.

Pat would not stay to sit down, for Nannie had not seconded her mother's
invitation, and the disappointed boy only lingered to take one peep
under the curtain of the cradle of Winnie, and then went home to his
abode with a downcast mien, and a slow gait.

CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Bond had not been to see them for a great while, and the cold
weather was coming, and there were hard times in store for them, if they
did not manage to get some sewing, or something to do. It was the first
of November, and the breeze was no longer soft and bland, as it came
from the blue waters upward into the little room, but it was fresh and
chilly, and had a mournful tone, and Nannie got cotton and stuffed the
windows tight to keep it out. There was but little fuel in the house,
and scarcely any money for their next quarter's rent, and Mrs. Flin had
been up a day or two before to warn them that they must leave if the
funds were not ready by a certain time. Mrs. Bates had fallen down
stairs by means of one of Master Sammy's round pebbles, and lamed
herself, so that she was no longer able to trudge about with her basket,
and where she had applied for sewing, they told her there were more
applicants than work, and so she did not know what to do.

"To-morrow's rent-day, Nannie," said she with