'I did say it to him,' she whispered, as she was quitting the room with Mary. 'I thought I might spare a sixpence out of what Darby got from the society. But I can't; I can't. There's so many things we cannot do without, unless we just give up, and lie down and don't even try at keeping body and soul together. Rent, and coals, and candles, and soap; and we must eat something. Darby, too, of course he wants a trifle for beer and tobacco. Mary, I say I am just heart-faint. If the poor boy should die, it'll be upon my mind for ever, that the drink he craved for in his last illness couldn't be got for him.' 'Does he crave for it?' 'Nothing was ever like it. All day long it has been his sad, pitiful cry. "Have you got the jelly yet, mother? Oh, mother, if I could but have the drink!"' As Mary went through the front room, Robert Darby was in it then. His chin rested on his hands, his elbows were on the table; altogether he looked very down-hearted. 'I have been to see Willy,' she cried. 'Ah, poor little chap!' It was all he said; but the tone implied more. 'Things seem to be getting pretty low with us all. I wish there could be a change,' continued Mary. 'How can there be, while the masters and the Unions are at loggerheads?' he asked. 'Us men be between the two, and between the two we come to the ground. It's like sitting on two stools at once.' Mary proceeded to the shop where jelly was sold, an oilman's, bought a sixpenny pot, and took it back to Mrs. Darby's, handing it in at the door. 'Why did you do it, Mary? You cannot afford it.' 'Yes, I can. Give it to Willy, with my love.' 'He will only be out of a world of care, if God does take him,' sighed Mary to herself, as she bent her steps homeward. 'Oh, father!' she continued aloud, encountering John Baxendale at their own gate, 'I wish this sad state of things could be ended. There's the poor little Darbys worse instead of better. They are all lying in one room, down with fever.' 'God help us if fever should come!' was the reply of John Baxendale. 'It is not catching fever yet. They have given up their top chambers, and are all sleeping in that back room. Poor Willie craved for a bit of jelly, and Mrs. Darby could not get it him.' 'Better crave for that than for worse things,' returned John Baxendale. 'I am just a walking about here, because I can't bear to stop indoors. I _can't_ pay the rent, and the things must go.' 'No, father, they need not. He said if you would get up two pounds towards it, he would give time for the rest. If----' 'Two pounds!' ejaculated John Baxendale, 'where am I to get two pounds from? Borrow of them that have been provident, and so are better off, in this distress, than me? No, that I never will.'