where you’ll find me; and it’s my belief that many a man has swung on a gibbet, and many a woman has cursed God and man with her last breath, for want of just that. As if food, and drink, and clothes was all a child wanted, or a wife either, for that matter; as if that was all a husband or a father was bound to furnish; as if that was all the Lord would hold him accountable for; as if that was--gracious Gradgrind, there’s my toast burnt all to a crisp.” * * * * * Thanks to Mrs. Hereford, who procured the herbs ordered by the doctor, the poor sufferer was temporarily relieved. “Who is that, Mary?” she asked, as she distinguished a strange footstep in the hall. “It is Miss Alsop,” replied Mary. No reply from the invalid, but a weary turning of the pale face toward the pillow, and a gathering moisture in the eyes. “Come here, Mary--nearer--nearer”--Mrs. Hereford bent her head so low that her brown curls swept her mother’s pillow. “That--woman--will--be--your--father’s--wife when--I--am--scarcely--cold.” “God forbid--don’t, mother--don’t;” and poor Mary’s tears and kisses covered the emaciated face before her. “You have a home--and a husband--and a kind one, Mary, but Susan and Neddy--it is hard to leave my children to her keeping. If I could but take them with me.” As she said this, Betty beckoned Mrs. Hereford out of the room, saying “that Miss Alsop wished to see her, to inquire how dear Mrs. Wade had passed the night.” “Tell her,” said Mary, “that she is very ill, and that I can not leave her to receive visitors.” “If you please,” said Betty, returning, “Miss Alsop says she is so weary that she will sit and rest for half an hour.” “Just half an hour before father comes home; then, of course, he will invite her to partake his solitary dinner; that’s just what she came for; mother is right; how strange that I never should have thought of all this before!” and a thousand little things now flashed upon her mind in confirmation of what her mother had just said.