Adeline sighed as she contemplated this change effected by illness; and, promising to be back as soon as possible, she proceeded to a shop to dispose of her lace veil, the only ornament which she had retained; and that not from vanity, but because it concealed from the eye of curiosity the sorrow marked on her countenance. But she knew a piece of muslin would do as well; and for two guineas sold a veil worth treble that sum; but it was to give a minute's pleasure to Glenmurray, and that was enough for Adeline. On her way to the fruiterer's she saw a crowd at the door of a mean-looking house, and in the midst of it she beheld a mulatto woman, the picture of sickness and despair, supporting a young man who seemed ready to faint every moment, but whom a rough-featured man, regardless of his weakness, was trying to force from the grasp of the unhappy woman; while a mulatto boy, known in Richmond by the name of the Tawny Boy, to whom Adeline had often given halfpence in her walks, was crying bitterly, and hiding his face in the poor woman's apron. Adeline immediately pressed forward to inquire into the cause of a distress only too congenial to her feelings; and as she did so, the tawny boy looked up, and, knowing her immediately, ran eagerly forward to meet her, seeming, though he did not speak, to associate with her presence an idea of certain relief. 'Oh! it is only a poor man,' replied an old woman in answer to Adeline's inquiries, 'who can't pay his debts,--and so they are dragging him to prison--that's all.' 'They are dragging him to his death too,' cried a younger woman in a gentle accent; 'for he is only just recovering from a bad fever: and if he goes to jail the bad air will certainly kill him, poor soul!' 'Is that his wife?' said Adeline. 'Yes, and my mammy,' said the tawny boy, looking up in her face, 'and she so ill and sorry.' 'Yes, unhappy creatures,' replied her informant, 'and they have known great trouble; and now, just as they had got a little money together, William fell ill, and in doctor's stuff Savanna (that's the mulatto's name) has spent all the money she had earned, as well as her husband's; and now she is ill herself, and I am sure William's going to jail will kill her. And a hard-hearted, wicked wretch Mr Davis is, to arrest him--that he is--not but what it is his due, I cannot say but it is--but, poor souls! he'll die, and she'll die, and then what will become of their poor little boy?' The tawny boy all this time was standing, crying, by Adeline's side, and had twisted his fingers in her gown, while her heart sympathized most painfully in the anguish of the mulatto woman. 'What is the amount of the sum for which he is taken up?' said Adeline. 'Oh! trifling: but Mr Davis owes him a grudge, and so will not wait any longer. It is in all only ten pounds; and he says if they will pay part he will wait for the rest; but then he knows they could as well pay all as part.'