ll eagerly listening to the
awful bustle within. At length there is a dead silence of some minutes.
The listeners shuddered.

"It is all over with her!" ejaculates one tender-hearted manoeuvrer of
the warming-pan, with her apron in the corner her eye. "Poor lady! it
is all over with her!"

It was exactly two in the morning of the 21st that a shrill cry was
heard. Shortly after, the door was flung open by the nurse, and a new
edition of an embryo reefer appeared in her arms, and very manfully did
the play of his lungs make everyone present aware that _somebody_ had
made his appearance. The supposed bed of death turned out to be a bed
of life, and another being was born to wail, to sin, and to die, as
myriads have wailed, and sinned, and died before him.

CHAPTER TWO.

I AM DECIDEDLY AN INCUMBRANCE--BEGIN LIFE WITH HALF A DOZEN FRUITLESS
JOURNEYS--FIND A HOME AND A FOSTER FATHER--AND TALK LEARNEDLY OF
TRIANGLES AND ARCHBISHOPS.

What is to be done with the child? It is a fearful question, and has
been often asked under every degree of suffering. Of all possible
articles, a child is the most difficult to dispose of; a wife may be
dispensed with without much heart-breaking--even a friend and rubbish
may be shot out of the way, and the bosom remain tranquil; but a
helpless, new-born infant!--O there is a pleading eloquence in its
feeble wail that goes to the heart and ear of the stranger--and must act
like living fire in the bowels of the mother.

The whole household were immediately sent in quest of a wet-nurse. At
length one was found in the very pretty wife of a reprobate sawyer, of
the name of Brandon. He had seen many vicissitudes of life--had been a
soldier, a gentleman's servant, had been to sea, and was a shrewd,
vicious, and hard man, with a most unquenchable passion for strong beer,
and a steady addiction to skittles. His wife was a little gentle being,
of an extremely compact and prepossessing figure; her face was ruddy
with health, and, as said before, extremely pretty; for, had it not been
for an air of what fear must call vulgarity, for want of a more gentle
term, she would have merited the term of beautiful. Brandon was a
top-sawyer, but, as three out of the six working days of the week he was
to be found with a pot of porter by his side, pipe in mouth, and the
skittle-ball in his hand, it is not surprising that there was much
misery in his home, which he often heightened by his brutality.