my
month's unpaid bill, my public-house scores, my destitute home; these
and a thousand things connected with my situation, kept me musing in no
very comfortable frame of mind, when the latch again clicked, the door
opened, and through the half gleam of one flickering flame, I just
caught the glimpse of a form, that in the next instant, cold and wet,
sunk lifeless in my arms. It was Mary. As she sunk down upon me, she
just said, with a shudder, "Cold." Shall I stop to tell you of the agony
of my mind? Shall I endeavor to relate a portion of the thoughts that
chased each other with a comet's rapidity through my brain; the
remembrance of our past comforts, and our happiness too? Recovering
after the lapse of an instant, I called, "Jane, Jane, get up, and make
haste; your mother is come home, and is very ill and faint; get a
light"--she was quickly at my side--"get a light," for the little
unfriendly flame had ceased to burn.

"But where are you, mother?" said Jane. "Jane, child," said I, angrily,
"your mother is here; get a light directly." "We haven't a bit of
candle, father." "Then get some wood out of the back room--break up some
little bits--O, do make haste." "We haven't a bit of wood, father."
"Child, child--" "Yes, father, but we haven't any." My poor wife at this
moment gave a kind of sob, and with a slight struggle, as if for breath,
sunk heavier in my arms. I tried to hold her up in an easier posture,
calling to her in a tender manner, "Mary, my dear Mary;" but my
sensations and my conscience almost choked me. In this moment of anguish
and perplexity, my wife, for aught I knew, dead in my arms--without
light, without fuel, without food, without credit, Mrs. Mason returned.
Jane had managed to make the fire burn up, just so as to disclose our
wretched situation. "Your wife ill?" said Mrs. Mason, hastily stepping
forward--"very ill, I fear, James, and wet and cold--run hastily,
James," reaching herself a broken chair, "and call in Mrs. Wright, and
place your wife on my lap." This I immediately did, and as I opened the
door to go out, I heard Mrs. Mason ask Jane to get a light--and shame
made me secretly rejoice, that I had escaped the humiliation, for the
present, of confessing that we had not even a bit of a candle in the
house.

Mrs. Wright was preparing for supper: they were regular and early folks,
and my heart sunk within me when, in my hurry, I unceremoniously opened
the door--I mean the contrast I saw bet