re I am very much obliged to you."

"I can do a great deal, marm. Cheer up," replied Harry, tenderly.

As he spoke, one of the children in the trundle bed sobbed in its
sleep; and the poor mother's heart seemed to be lacerated by the
sound.

"Poor child," wailed she. "He had no supper but a crust of bread and a
cup of cold water. He cried himself to sleep with cold and hunger. Oh,
Heaven! that we should have come to this!"

"And the room is very cold," added Harry, glancing around him.

"It is. Our wood is all gone but two great logs. Katy could not bring
them up."

"I worked for an hour trying to split some pieces off them," said
Katy, the lame girl.

"I will fix them, marm," replied Harry, who felt the strength of ten
stout men in his limbs at that moment. "But you have had no supper."

"No."

"Wait a minute. Have you a basket?"

Katy brought him a peck basket, and Harry rushed out of the house as
though he had been shot. Great deeds were before him, and he was
inspired for the occasion.

In a quarter of an hour he returned. The basket was nearly full.
Placing it in a chair, he took from it a package of candles, one of
which he lighted and placed in a tin candlestick on the table.

"Now we have got a little light on the subject," said he, as he began
to display the contents of the basket. "Here, Katy, is two pounds of
meat; here is half a pound of tea; you had better put a little in the
teapot, and let it be steeping for your mother."

"God bless you!" exclaimed Mrs. Flint. "You are an angel sent from
Heaven to help us in our distress."

"No, marm; I ain't an angel," answered Harry, who seemed to feel that
Julia Bryant had an exclusive monopoly of that appellation, so far as
it could be reasonably applied to mortals. "I only want to do my duty,
marm."

Katy Flint was so bewildered that she could say nothing, though her
opinion undoubtedly coincided with that of her mother.

"Here is two loaves of bread and two dozen crackers; a pound of
butter; two pounds of sugar. There! I did not bring any milk."

"Never mind the milk. You are a blessed child."

"Give me a pitcher, Katy. I will go down to Thomas's in two shakes of
a jiffy."

Mrs. Flint protested that she did not want any milk--that she could
get along very well without it; but Harry said the children must have
it; and, without waiting for Katy to get the pitcher, he took it from
the closet, and ran out of the house.

He was gone but a few