eized upon her all too
soon, when wasted with sorrow, and weakened by want. She lay, long
weeks, battling for life, in her little back parlour, at Islington,
tended night and day by her kind, good husband.

But did she not often (you will say) urge him, earnestly as the dying
ask, to seek out her father or brother (she had not been told of his
conviction), and to let them know this need? Why, then, did he so often
put her off with faint excuses, and calm her with coming hopes, and do
any thing, say any thing, suffer any thing, rather than execute the
fervent wish of the affectionate Maria? It is easily understood. With,
and notwithstanding, all the high sentiments, strong sense, and warm
feelings of Henry Clements, he was too proud to seek any succour of the
Dillaways. Sooner than give that hard old man, or, beforetime, that keen
malicious young one, any occasion to triumph over his necessitous
condition, he himself would starve: ay, and trust to Heaven his darling
wife and child; but not trust these to them. Never, never--if the
heart-divorcing work-house were their doom--should that father or that
brother hear from him a word of supplication, or one murmur of
complaint. Nay; he took pains to hinder their knowledge of this trouble:
all the world, rather than those two men. Let penury, disease, the very
parish-beadle triumph over him, but not those two. It was a natural
feeling for a sensitive mind like his--but in many respects a wrong one.
It was to put away, deliberately, the helping hand of Providence,
because it bade him kiss the rod. It was a direct preference of honour
to humility. It was an unconsciously unkind consideration of himself
before those whom he nevertheless believed and called more dear to him
than life--but not than honour. Therefore it was that the hand-bills he
had so often seen pasted upon walls were disregarded, that the numerous
newspaper advertisements remained unanswered, and that all the efforts
of an almost frantic father to find his long-lost daughter were in vain.

Meanwhile, to be just upon poor Clements, who really fancied he was
doing right in this, he left no stone unturned to obtain a provision for
his beloved wife and child. Frequently, by letters (as little urgent as
affection and necessity would suffer him), he had pressed upon some
powerful friends for that vague phantom of a gentlemanly
livelihood--"something under government;" a hope improbable of
accomplishment, indefinite as