On the eventful day that gave young Master Colin Clink to the world, and about twelve hours previous to the time at which he _should have made_ his actual appearance, Mistress Clink, his mother, was lying upon a bed in an inner ground-floor room of her cottage, think-ing--if the troubled and confused ideas that filled her brain might be termed thinking--upon her coming trials; while little Fanny, taking temporary advantage of the illness of her mistress, and relaxing, in a moment of happy forgetfulness, again into a child, was sitting upon the ground near the door, and noiselessly amusing herself by weighing in a halfpenny pair of tin scales the sand which had been strown upon the floor by way of carpet, when the abrupt entrance of some one at the outer door, though unheard by the sick woman amidst her half-dreaming reveries, so startled the little offender on the ground, that, in her haste to scramble on to her feet, and recover all the solemn proprieties and demure looks which, in a returning moment of infantile nature, had been cast aside, she upset the last imaginary pound of sand-made sugar that had been heaped up on a stool beside her, and at the same time chanced to strike her head against the under side of the little round table which stood at hand, whereby a bottle of physic was tossed uninjured on to the bed, and a spoon precipitated to the floor. Her countenance instantly changed to an expression which told that the crime was of too black a dye to be forgiven. But patience without tears, and endurance without complaint, were also as visible; virtues which hard necessity had instilled into her bosom long before. Ill as Mistress Clink may readily be presumed to have been, she started half up in bed, leaning with her elbow upon the pillow, her countenance, pale and ghastly with sickness, rendered still more pale and horrible with anger, and gasping for words, which even then came faint in sound though strong in bitterness, she began to rate the child vehemently for her accidental disaster. In another instant a female servant of the squire of the parish stood by the bedside. Mistress Clink fell back upon the pillow, while her face for a moment blushed scarlet, and then became again as white as ashes. “_Don't_ rate the poor child, if you please, ma'am,” said the woman. “Poor thing! it's only a bag of bones at best.” “Oh, I'm ill!” sighed Mistress Clink. “Ay, dear! you _do_ look ill,” responded the woman. “I 'll run and fetch the doctor; but, if you please, ma'am, master has sent this little basket of things for you.” “What things?” asked the sick woman, slightly rallying, and in an eager voice. “Linen, ma'am,” observed the servant, at the same time opening the lid of the basket. “How very good of him!” whispered Fanny. “Yes, child,” replied the serving woman; “he's always very kind to poor women.” The invalid was aroused; she almost raised herself again upon her hand.