"There's no doubt the game turned out ill for me. At first it seemed as if it would be just otherwise, for my husband had good health, plenty of work, and sufficient pay; so that, when my little girl came, her sweet face brought no shadow of anxiety with it, and we hoped she would be followed in due course by half-a-dozen more. But ere the dear babe had learned to prattle, a drear change came over the happy prospect. The fever crept over the gentle darling, and after she had suffered for a week or more, lying on my arms, God raised her from me into his happy home, where the beauty of summer reigns for ever, and the coldness of winter never enters. Richard and I took the body of our babe to the burial-ground, and saw it covered up in the earth which by turns gives all we get, and takes away from us all we have; and as we walked back to our deserted home, arm-in-arm, in the light of the summer's evening, we talked to each other more solemnly and tenderly than we had done for many a day. And the next morning he went back to his work in the office, from which he had absented himself since our child's death; and I encouraged him to cheer up, and not to give way to sorrow when I was not nigh to comfort him, but toil bravely and hopefully, as a man should; and in so advising him, I do not blush to say that I thought not only of what was best for his spirits, but also of what our necessity required--for we were only poor people, not at any time beforehand in the world, and now reduced by the cost of our little one's illness and funeral; and, sir, in this hard world we women, most times, have the best of it, for when the house is full of sorrow, we have little else to do but weep, but the men have to grieve and toil too. "But poor Richard could not hold up his head. He came back from work that day pale and faint, and in the evening he had a chill and a heat-fit, that let me know the fever which had killed our little one had passed into him. The next day he could not leave his bed, and the doctor (a most kind man, who was always making rough jokes in a rough voice--just to hide his womanliness) said to me, 'If your husband goes down to his master's chambers in the Temple to-day, he had better stop at the coffin-maker's, in the corner of Chancery Lane, and leave his measure.' But Richard's case was not one for a jest, and he rapidly became worse than the doctor fancied he would be when he made that light speech. He was ill for six weeks, and then began slowly to mend; he got on so far as to sit up for two days for half-an-hour while he had his tea, and we were hoping that soon he would be able to be moved into the country--to my sister's, whose husband was an engineer at Stratford; but, suddenly, he had a relapse, and on the morning that finished the tenth week from his being seized, his arms let go their hold on my neck--and I was left alone!