oy, and many an anxious thought had she
about him during that period; many a time when her fond heart yearned
for him, she had well nigh said she wished they had never sent him
away; many a time when some foot had been heard at the door her heart
stopped at the thought, that it might be him; and now that he had come,
really come, had run so far to be near her, had come so weary,
footsore, and hungry, had laid his weary head on the end of the table
and wept tears of trouble and pleasure, had fallen asleep there as he
sat, she put her kind arms around him, kissed his hot forehead and
said, "Dear lad, they shall not take him away from his mother any more
for all the masters and trades in the land." So it was of no use that
Mr. Lockwood should argue for his going back; he had to yield
inevitably, for what man can think to contend long against his _better_
half? From that time all attempt to bring Abraham up as an artificer
ended, and he found employment with his father as a cloth-finisher, at
which he worked most of his lifetime afterwards.

Soon after these stirring little events had gone by, another happened
in that household which brought far more pain and anxiety than anything
that had preceded it. The youth who would not be parted from his
mother, could not prevent his mother from leaving him, and the
separation took place; death stept in, and without regard to the fond
feelings which bound that little household together, bore away the wife
and mother to the spirit land, while her body was laid among the dust
of others in the yard of the old brick chapel in Chapel Hill,
Huddersfield.

What a gap it made in that house! in the hearts of its inmates it left
an open wound which only long months of patient endurance could heal.
When a mother's dust is carried out and laid in the grave, it is the
light of the domestic hearth gone out; it is the sweetest string gone
from the family harp; that bereavement is like the breath of winter
among tender flowers; the live tree around which entwined tender
creepers is torn up, and they lie entangled on the ground, disconsolate
and helpless, until the Great Father of us all shall give them strength
to stand alone.

Abraham Lockwood's mother was dead, and a kind restraining hand, which
many a time kept his wild and wayward spirit in subjection, was thereby
withdrawn, and the ill effects in time began to show themselves in his
conduct. As he grew older, and the trouble consequent o