re are some ladies upstairs--your sisters, I
suppose--you had better go to them."

There was an ominous silence in the house; no one was moving about.
What had become of all the servants? I stole gently up to Jane and
Mary's boudoir. They, and little Emily our younger sister, were seated
together, all dressed in black. Sobs burst from them, as they threw
their arms round my neck, without uttering a word. I then knew to a
certainty what had happened--our kind father was dead; but I little
conceived the sad misfortunes which had previously overtaken him and
broken his heart, leaving his children utterly destitute.

Jane, on recovering herself, in a gentle sad voice told me all about it.
"Mary and I intend going out as governesses, but we scarcely know what
to do for dear Emily and you Harry, though we will devote our salaries
to keep you and her at school."

"Oh, I surely can get a place as a nursemaid," said Emily, a fair
delicate girl, looking but ill-adapted for the situation she proposed
for herself. "And I, Jane, will certainly not deprive you and Mary of
your hard-earned salaries, even were you to obtain what would be
required," I answered, firmly. "I ought rather to support you, and I
hope to be able to do so by some means or other."

My sisters even then were not aware of the sad position in which we were
placed. Our father had been a man of peculiarly reserved and retiring
manners; he had formed no friendships in England, and the few people he
knew were simply business acquaintances. An execution had been put into
the house even before his death, so that we had no power over a single
article it contained.

The servants, with the exception of my sisters' black nurse, had gone
away, and we had not a friend whose hospitality we could claim. She,
good creature (Mammy, as we called her), finding out, on seeing my trunk
in the hall, that I had arrived, came breathless, from hurrying up
stairs, into the room, and embracing me, kissed my forehead and cheeks
as if I had still been a little child; and I felt the big drops fall
from her eyes as she held me in her shrivelled arms. "Sad all this,
Massa Harry, but we got good Fader up dere, and He take care of us
though He call massa away," and she cast her eyes to heaven, trusting
with a simple firm faith to receive from thence that protection she
might have justly feared she was not likely to obtain on earth.

"We all have our sorrows, dear children," she con