led for you to go with me on an errand of mercy."

There was no Christian response in the face of Mrs. Caldwell. She
was too deep amid the gloom of her own, wretched state to have
sympathy for others.

"Mary Brady is in trouble," said Mrs. Bland.

"What has happened?" Mrs. Caldwell was alive with interest in a
moment.

"Her husband fell through a hatchway yesterday, and came near being
killed."

"Mrs. Bland!"

"The escape was miraculous."

"Is he badly injured?"

"A leg and two ribs broken. Nothing more, I believe. But that is a
very serious thing, especially where the man's labor is his family's
sole dependence."

"Poor Mary!" said Mrs. Caldwell, in real sympathy. "In what a
dreadful state she must be! I pity her from the bottom of my heart."

"Put on your things, and let us go and see her at once."

Now, it is never a pleasant thing for persons like Mrs. Caldwell to
look other people's troubles directly in the face. It is bad enough
to dwell among their own pains and annoyances, and they shrink from
meddling with another's griefs. But, in the present case, Mrs.
Caldwell, moved by a sense of duty and a feeling of interest in Mrs.
Brady, who had, years before, been a faithful domestic in her
mother's house, was, constrained to overcome all reluctance, and
join her friend in the proposed visit of mercy.

"Poor Mary! What a state she must be in!"

Three or four times did Mrs. Caldwell repeat this sentence, as they
walked towards that part of the town in which Mrs. Brady resided.
"It makes me sick, at heart to think of it," she added.

At last they stood at the door of a small brick house, in a narrow
street, and knocked. Mrs. Caldwell dreaded to enter, and even shrank
a little behind her friend when she heard a hand on the lock. It was
Mary who opened the door--Mary Brady, with scarcely a sign of change
in her countenance, except that it was a trifle paler.

"O! Come in!" she said, a smile of pleasure brightening over her
face. But Mrs. Caldwell could not smile in return. It seemed to her
as if it would be a mockery of the trouble which had come down upon
that humble dwelling.

"How is your husband, Mary?" she asked with a solemn face, as soon
as they had entered. "I only heard a little while ago of this
dreadful occurrence."

"Thank you, ma'am," replied Mrs. Brady, her countenance hardly
falling to a serious tone in its expression. "He's quite comfortable
to-day; and it's such a relief to see him