rse than ever. 'Twas like the curse pronounced on David,
said he, that the sword should never depart from his house: he could
never look to know rest nor peace any more; God hated him, and pursued
him to the death. No word of mine, though I strove to find many from
the Word of God, seemed to bring him any comfort at all. They were not
for him, he said, but for them toward whom God had purposes of mercy,
and there was none for him. He had sinned against light and knowledge;
and God would none of him any more.

"One morning, about a week after the fire, as I was coming back from my
marketing to the little mean lodging where we had took shelter, and was
just going in at the door, I was sorely started to feel a great warm
hand on my shoulder, and a loud, cheery voice saith, `Dolly Jennings,
whither away so fast thou canst not see an old friend?' I looked up,
and there was dear old Farmer Ingham, in his thick boots and country
homespun; but I declare to you, child, that in my trouble his face was
to me as that of an angel of God. I brake down, and sobbed aloud.
`Come, come, now!' saith he, comfortably; `not so bad as that, is it?
I've been seeking thee these four days, Dolly, child. I knew I could
find thee if I came myself, though the Missis said I never should; and
I've asked at one, and asked at another, and looked up streets and down
streets, till this morning I saw a young maid, with her back to me,
a-going down an alley; and says I, right out loud, "That's Dolly's back,
or else I'm a Dutchman!" So I ran after thee, and only just catched
thee up. I'm not so lissome as thou; nay, nor so lissome as I was at
thy years. However, here I am, and here thou art; so that's all right.
And there's a good bed and a warm welcome for everyone of you at Ingle
Nook'--that was the name of his farm, my dear--`and I've brought up a
cart and the old tit to drag it, and we'll see if we can't make thee
laugh and be rosy again.' Dear old man! no nay would he take, nor
suffer so much as a word from father about our being any cost and
trouble to him. `Stuff and nonsense!' said he; `I've got money saved,
and the farm's doing well, and only my two bits of maids to leave it to;
and who should I desire to help in this big trouble, if not my own
foster-child, and hers?' So father yielded, and we went down to Ingle
Nook.

"Farmer Ingham very soon found what was wrong with father. `Eh, poor
soul!' said he to me, `he's the hundredth shee