an not work!"

"God will provide, only trust Him, poor child," said the kind lady, as
she wiped the tears that had moistened her own eyes at sight of the
child's grief.

"Where do your parents live, my little girl," asked the benevolent
surgeon--"we must be getting you home, or they will be anxious about you
now that the night is coming on."

The child started as she heard the word "_home_," and blushing the
deepest crimson, replied, "If you please, sir, I am able to walk now,
and will go alone, for dear mamma would be angry if I had strangers with
me--she never sees any one but father, now."

"'Twould be madness to send her forth into this wintery air with a newly
broken arm," said the lady--"if you will come with me, little Jennie, we
will soon satisfy your parents that you are in comfortable quarters, my
carriage is at the door, and John shall go alone to your home with a
message"--and, calling her servant, she bade him bring one of the soft
robes from the carriage, and wrapping it closely about the shivering
child, she had her conveyed to her own noble home.

CHAPTER II.

Up, up, up till you reached the very topmost room in a rickety building
in ---- street, and there they were--a woman in neat but coarse raiment,
seated by a flickering candle, stitching for the life, and with every
effort for the life, stitching out the life. Near her, on a lowly bed,
lay her suffering husband, watching the wan fingers as they busily plied
for him who would fain have spent his last strength for their rest.

The frosty breath of a December night came through the chinks in the
roof, and around the windows, and left its bitter impress upon the sick
and weary. A few coals partially ignited, seemed to mock at the visions
of warmth and comfort they inspired, and the simmering of the kettle
that hung low over the coals, made the absence of a cheery board, and a
happy group around it only the more painfully apparent.

The sick man closed his eyes, as if to shut out the memory of those
wasted fingers that were ever so zealously moving, and then looking
wistfully at the murmuring kettle, he said, "Has not the child come yet,
Mary?--perhaps she has enough for our scanty meal to-night, and yet my
heart misgives me on her account--is it not very late for her to stay
away? She is such a timid little thing, and always flies to us before
the darkness begins to come! Her's is a cruel age, and a loathsome
employment. Would God I had