holy angels guard your slumbers!"

They were all in all to each other, this gentle invalid and her only
child. There is nothing that draws refined natures nearer to each other
in this world, than mutual suffering. And day after day the girl
struggled on with her burden, while the elder woman could only pray that
she might have strength given her from on high. There are other cases
like this on earth. The mother and daughter are but the type of a class
of earnest-hearted ones of whom few dream the worth. As another has
written, "there are many of these virtues in low places; some day they
will be on high. This life has a morrow."

* * * * *

There was a long, cold winter approaching. Clemence's mind was occupied
with the one question that is the burden of the poor in our
cities--"What shall we do in order to live through the inclement season,
which is so nearly at hand?" She could get no work of the kind for which
she was most fitted. She had in the old days, a feminine love for
needlework, and she thought, "Why not turn this to account? I might
manage to eke out a subsistence in that way."

* * * * *

She had gained one true friend in her adversity. Alicia Linden had
sought her out and managed to befriend her in various ways. She resolved
to consult her immediately.

"A good idea," said that energetic lady. "I will try and help you to
obtain employment."

This she did, keeping the name of the young girl from the circle of
ladies, whose patronage she solicited. It requires influence, even in
the humblest calling, to obtain plenty of work at good prices. Clemence
did not dream how much she was indebted to the kindness of the
masculine widow for the generous sums that came for her finely wrought
articles.

"You owe me no thanks, dear," Mrs. Linden would say, and, thinking
remorsefully of that little feminine gossip at the Crane mansion, would
redouble her efforts in the young girl's behalf. Mrs. Linden had a fear
which amounted to presentiment, that the aforementioned clique, of which
Mrs. Crane was the acknowledged leader, would learn, by some means, of
her new interest in Clemence Graystone. So great was her dread of such a
discovery, that she carefully avoided the society of those ladies, and
did not once venture into the neighborhood of her friends. How her
cherished secret became known to them she never knew, but, that it _had_
become known she so