for her mother, whose
grief is fearful to witness.

They follow the corpse, and all night long the poor woman keeps her
widowed vigils around the place where they have deposited her husband.
She thinks not of the child upon her bosom, nor does she heed nor
resist Nannie as she takes it gently away and runs back to the region of
the overflowed cellar. The morning has dawned in serenity and
loveliness, but there are signs of a late devastation all about. Broken
limbs of trees are strewn hither and thither, while now and then one
wholly uprooted lies prostrate across the street. Busy men are working
hurriedly to extricate a poor family whose house a land-slide has quite
buried. The mother and father have escaped the catastrophe, but their
boy and girl are crushed in the fallen ruins. Deep gullies in the hill
above her home show Nannie how fearful was the storm, and a mass of
stones and rubbish that fill the sluice, that should have turned the
water from their door, tell her the reason of their dreadful inundation.
She is trying to think whether it _is_ dreadful to her or not, when a
kind voice accosts her. "What's the matter here?" says Mr. Bond; "and
what are you and the baby out for in this soaking condition? Isn't your
mother in the house, and haven't you a dry rag to put upon that poor
child? 't will get its death, and you, too; come in here, quick, and
let's see what can be done."

"If you please sir, father's drowned in the rain last night, and my
mother's up by the dead-house, and me and baby haven't any home any more
to go to, nor any dry clothes to wear," said Nannie, wringing the little
frock that clung to the shivering infant, and following her friend
half-way down the steps to the cellar.

"Just as I feared!" said he, looking into the room and quickly
retreating; "the poor wretch has met a sudden and awful doom, the Lord
preserve us all!" and, telling Nannie to keep up with him, he led the
way to a higher and more healthy quarter of the street, and stopped at a
tidy-looking house, where a neatly clad woman answered his rap. "You
have lodgings to let?" asked he, glancing with an evident pleasure upon
the white floor of the entry that showed no spot nor stain.

"Why, yes, sir," returned she with an uneasy look at the forlorn child
and baby on the step; "there's a room and bedroom in the attic to let to
respectable people as has no followers, nor drinkings, nor carousings,
nor such like about 'em."

"Let me