e of her husband's small,
select library. Careful mending kept the younger children tolerably
decent, and by altering for him the clothes left by his father, she
was able to keep Hiram in a suitable condition, to appear at the
store of his employer.

Thus matters went on for several months. Mrs. Mayberry, working late
and early. The natural result was, a gradual failure of strength. In
the morning, when she awoke, she would feel so languid and heavy,
that to rise required a strong effort, and even after she was up,
and attempted to resume her labors, her trembling frame almost
refused to obey the dictates of her will. At length, nature gave
way. One morning she was so sick that she could not rise. Her head
throbbed with a dizzy, blinding pain--her whole body ached, and her
skin burned with fever. Hiram got something for the children to eat,
and then taking the youngest, a little girl about two years old,
into the house of a neighbor, who had showed them some good-will,
asked her if she would take care of his sister until he returned
home at dinner time. This the neighbor readily consented to
do--promising, also, to call in frequently and see his mother.

At dinner-time, Hiram found his mother quite ill. She was no better
at night. For three days the fever raged violently. Then, under the
careful treatment of their old family physician, it was subdued.
After that she gradually recovered, but very slowly. The physician
said she must not attempt again to work as she had done. This
injunction was scarcely necessary. She had not the strength to do
so.

"I don't see what you will do, Mrs. Mayberry," a neighbor who had
often aided her by kind advice, said, in reply to the widow's
statement of her unhappy condition. "You cannot maintain these
children, certainly. And I don't see how, in your present feeble
state, you are going to maintain yourself. There is but one thing
that I can advise, and that advice I give with reluctance. It is to
endeavor to get two of your children into some orphan asylum. The
youngest you may be able to keep with you. The oldest can support
himself at something or other."

The pale cheek of Mrs. Mayberry grew paler at this proposition. She
half-sobbed, caught her breath, and looked her adviser with a
strange bewildered stare in the face.

"Oh, no! I cannot do that! I cannot be separated from my dear little
children. Who will care for them like a mother?"

"It is hard, I know, Mrs. Mayberry. B