ated her sadly, she felt his absence a relief.
Sitting over a handful of coals, she attempted to dry her wet feet;
every bone in her body ached, for she was not naturally strong, and
leaning her head on her hand, she allowed the big tears to course slowly
down her cheeks, without making any attempt to wipe them away, while she
murmured:

"Thirteen dollars a year gone! What is to become of us? I cannot get
help from those authorized by law to assist the poor, unless I agree
to put out my children, and I cannot live and see them abused and
over-worked at their tender age. And people think their father might
support us; but how can I help it that he spends all his earnings in
drink? And rich as Mrs. Percy is, she did not pay me my wages to-night,
and now I cannot get the yarn for my baby's stockings, and her little
limbs must remain cold awhile longer; and I must do without the flour,
too, that I was going to make into bread, and the potatoes are almost
gone."

Here Phoebe's emotions overcame her, and she ceased speaking. After a
while, she continued--

"Mrs. Percy also blamed me for being so slow; she did not know that I
was up half the night, and that my head has ached ready to split all
day. Oh! dear, oh! dear, oh! dear, if it were not for my babes, I should
yearn for the quiet of the grave!"

And with a long, quivering sigh, such as one might heave at the rending
of soul and body, Phoebe was silent.

Daughters of luxury! did it ever occur to you that we are all the
children of one common Parent? Oh, look hereafter with pity on those
faces where the records of suffering are deeply graven, and remember
"_Be ye warmed and filled_," will not suffice, unless the hand executes
the promptings of the heart. After awhile, as the fire died out, Phoebe
crept to her miserable pallet, crushed with the prospect of the days of
toil which were still before her, and haunted by the idea of sickness
and death, brought on by over-taxation of her bodily powers, while in
case of such an event, she was tortured by the reflection--"what is to
become of my children?"

Ah, this anxiety is the true bitterness of death, to the friendless and
poverty-stricken parent. In this way she passed the night, to renew,
with the dawn, the toils and cares which were fast closing their work on
her. We will not say what Phoebe, under other circumstances, might
have been. She possessed every noble attribute common to woman, without
education, or trainin