'Robert, let me speak to you,' she said in an imploring tone, the tears gushing from her eyes. 'I have sat here this week and asked myself, every hour of it, what we shall do. All our things, that money can be made on, are gone; the pittance we get allowed by the society does not keep body and soul together; and this state of affairs gets worse, and will get worse. What is to become of us? What are we to do?' Robert Darby leaned in his old jacket--one considerably the worse for wear--against the kitchen wall, his countenance gloomy, his attitude bespeaking misery. He knew not what they were to do, therefore he did not attempt to say. Grace had laid down her inflamed face upon the edge of Willy's pillow and was sobbing silently. The others sat on the floor: very quiet; as semi-starved little ones are apt to be. 'You have just said you would work your fingers to the bone to keep your children,' resumed Mrs. Darby to her husband. 'I'd work for them till the flesh dropped off me. I'd ask no better than to do it,' he vehemently said. 'But where am I to get work to do now?' 'Baxendale has got it,' she rejoined in a low tone. Grace started from her leaning posture. 'Oh, father, do as Baxendale has done! don't let the children quite starve. If you had been in work, this dreadful thing would not have happened. It will be a slur upon me for life.' 'So I would work, girl, but for the Trades' Unions.' 'Father, the Trades' Unions seem to bring you no good; nothing but harm. Don't trust them any longer; trust the masters now.' Never was there a better meaning man than Robert Darby; but he was too easily swayed by others. Latterly it had appeared to him that the Trades' Unions did bring him harm, and his trust in them was shaken. He stood for a few moments, revolving the question in his own mind. 'They'd cast me off, you see, the Trades' Unions would,' he observed to his wife, in an irresolute tone. 'What if they did? The masters would take you on. Stand right with the masters----' Mrs. Darby was interrupted by a shriek from Grace. Little Willy, whom nobody had been giving attention to, was lying back with a white face, senseless. Whether from the weakness of his condition, or from the unusual excitement of the scene going on around him, certain it was that the child had fainted. There was some little bustle in bringing him to, and Mrs. Darby sat down, the boy upon her lap. 'What ailed you, deary?' said Robert Darby, bending down to him. 'I don't know, father,' returned the child. And his voice was fainter than ever. Mrs. Darby pulled her husband's ear close to her lips. 'When the boy's dead, you'll wish you had cared for him more than for the Trades' Unions; and worked for him.'