orkers time to swallow the food necessary to enable
them to bear up until noon. The gates were opened, and the crowd swarmed
forth, but all seemed instinctively directed to a group at a short
distance, whose pallid faces reflected the ghastly sight before them.
The group soon swelled to a vast crowd. Enquiries were made on every
hand by those in the outer circle--"What is it? what is it?" "_Frozen
to death._" Tenderly those rough handed, rough-spoken men raised the
death-frozen little ones. Some there were who knew them and had heard of
their loss. It was to them an easy task to account for their deaths, and
curses low but deep were cast on them, at whose doors the blood of those
innocents must lie.

The bodies were taken to the nearest inn to wait an inquest. Those in
authority were quickly on the alert; whilst some who were acquainted
with the parents prepared to carry them the sorrowful tidings.--Poor
Bessy! thy cup of bitterness is nearly full!

Old Becca had come according to promise, and found Bessy laid partially
upon the bed in a swoon, her arm around the neck of him who had been her
faithful partner for a dozen years. She raised her, bathed her forehead,
and used all means in her power to promote her recovery. After a short
time she was successful; and having prepared the other bed and placed
Bessy upon it, she hastily left to get some assistance.

The poor have but the poor on whom they can depend in an emergency; and
it is a blessing that the request for help to each other is rarely if
ever made in vain.

She soon returned with plenty of willing hands--one took the babe, and
others remained to perform the last sad offices to the remains of him
who had gone "a little while before." Soon the men arrived with the
mournful account of the discovery of the children, but Bessy knew it
not. God had had compassion upon her, and to save her heart from
breaking, had thrown a cloud over her reason.

Silently they stood for a moment in that house of death; and as they
turned to go, one after another placed what money each had, noiselessly
upon the table: the whole perhaps did not amount to much, but who shall
say that it was not a welcome loan to the Lord--an investment in heaven
that should in after time yield to them an interest outweighing the
wealth of the whole world?

As the day advanced, numbers gathered round the inn where the coroner
and jury were assembled. The usual form of viewing the bodies was gone
th