s able; but having met with no
refreshment at Mr. Fantom's, and her strength quite failing her, she
had sunk down on the middle of the common. Happily, Mr. Trueman and
Mrs. Fantom came up at this very time. The former had had the
precaution to bring a cordial, and the latter had gone back and
stuffed her pockets with old baby linen. Mr. Trueman soon procured
the assistance of a laborer, who happened to pass by, to help him to
carry the mother, and Mrs. Fantom carried the little shivering baby.

As soon as they were safely lodged, Mr. Trueman set off in search of
poor Jenkins, who was distressed to know what was become of his wife
and child; for having heard that they were seen going toward Mr.
Fantom's, he despaired of any assistance from that quarter. Mr.
Trueman felt no small satisfaction in uniting this poor man to his
little family. There was something very moving in this meeting, and
in the pious gratitude they expressed for their deliverance. They
seemed to forget they had lost their all, in the joy they felt that
they had not lost each other. And some disdainful great ones might
have smiled to see so much rapture expressed at the safety of a
child born to no inheritance but poverty. These are among the
feelings with which Providence sometimes overpays the want of
wealth. The good people also poured out prayers and blessings on
their deliverer, who, not being a philosopher, was no more ashamed
of praying with them than he had been of working for them. Mr.
Trueman, while assisting at the fire, had heard that Jenkins and his
wife were both very honest, and very pious people; so he told them
he would not only pay for their new lodgings, but undertook to raise
a little subscription among his friends at the Cat and Bagpipes
toward rebuilding their cottage; and further engaged that if they
would promise to bring up the child in the fear of God, he would
stand godfather.

This exercise of Christian charity had given such a cheerful flow to
Mr. Trueman's spirits, that long before he got home he had lost
every trace of ill-humor. "Well, Mr. Fantom," said he gayly, as he
opened the door, "now do tell me how you could possibly refuse going
to help me to put out the fire at poor Jenkins's?" "Because," said
Fantom, "I was engaged, sir, in a far nobler project than putting
out a fire in a little thatched cottage. Sir, I was contriving to
put out a fire too; a conflagration of a far more dreadful kind--a
fire, sir, in the ext