Mrs. Grubbling retreated into her chamber, and shut herself and the baby in. Poor Glory crept upstairs to her little attic. Coming down again, she set her bundle on the stairs, and knocked. "What is it?" was the ungracious response. "Please, mum, mightn't I say good-by to the baby?" The latch had slipped, and the door was already slightly ajar. Baby heard the accustomed voice, and struggled in his mother's arms. "A pretty time to come disturbing him to do it!" grumbled she. Nevertheless, she set the baby on the floor, who tottled out, and was seized by Glory, standing there in the dark entry, and pressed close in her poor, long-wearied, faithful arms. "Oh, baby, baby! I'm in it now! And I don't know rightly whether it's a good time or not!" CHAPTER VII. CARES; AND WHAT CAME OF THEM. "To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; . . . . . To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires." SPENCER. Two years and more had passed since the New Year's dance at the Rushleighs'. The crisis of '57 and '58 was approaching its culmination. The great earthquake that for months had been making itself heard afar off by its portentous rumbling was heaving to the final crash. Already the weaker houses had fallen and were forgotten. When a great financial trouble sweeps down upon a people, there are three general classes who receive and feel it, each in its own peculiar way. There are the great capitalists--the enormously rich--who, unless a tremendous combination of adversities shall utterly ruin here and there one, grow the richer yet for the calamities of their neighbors. There are also the very poor, who have nothing to lose but their daily labor and their daily bread--who may suffer and starve; but who, if by any little saving of a better time they can manage just to buy bread, shall be precisely where they were, practically, when the storm shall have blown over. Between these lies the great middle class--among whom, as on the middle ground, the world's great battle is continually waging--of persons who are neither rich nor poor; who have neither secured fortunes to fall back upon, nor yet the independence of their hands to turn to, when business and its income fail. This is the class that suffers most. Most keenly in apprehension, in mortification, in after privation. Of this class was the Gartney family. Mr. Gartney was growing pale and thin. No wonder; with sleepless nights, and harassed days, and forgotten, or unrelished meals. His wife watched him and waited for him, and contrived special comforts for him, and listened to his confidences.