her face, and then crept quietly away into some
dark corner, and sobbed himself to sleep. The hard realities of the
world, with many of its worst privations--hunger and thirst, and cold
and want--had all come home to him, from the first dawnings of reason;
and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry
laugh, and sparkling eyes were wanting. 'The father and mother looked
on upon this, and upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared
not breathe in words. The healthy, strong-made man, who could have borne
almost any fatigue of active exertion, was wasting beneath the close
confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded prison. The slight and
delicate woman was sinking beneath the combined effects of bodily and
mental illness. The child's young heart was breaking.

'Winter came, and with it weeks of cold and heavy rain. The poor girl
had removed to a wretched apartment close to the spot of her husband's
imprisonment; and though the change had been rendered necessary by their
increasing poverty, she was happier now, for she was nearer him. For two
months, she and her little companion watched the opening of the gate as
usual. One day she failed to come, for the first time. Another morning
arrived, and she came alone. The child was dead.

'They little know, who coldly talk of the poor man's bereavements, as
a happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful relief from
expense to the survivor--they little know, I say, what the agony of
those bereavements is. A silent look of affection and regard when all
other eyes are turned coldly away--the consciousness that we possess the
sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us--is
a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth
could purchase, or power bestow. The child had sat at his parents'
feet for hours together, with his little hands patiently folded in each
other, and his thin wan face raised towards them. They had seen him pine
away, from day to day; and though his brief existence had been a joyless
one, and he was now removed to that peace and rest which, child as he
was, he had never known in this world, they were his parents, and his
loss sank deep into their souls.

'It was plain to those who looked upon the mother's altered face,
that death must soon close the scene of her adversity and trial. Her
husband's fellow-prisoners shrank from obtruding on his grief and
misery, and left to