Her childhood passed much in the manner of the childhood of other people. From the time when she was a little wee thing till she was twelve years old, Delleparetta, or Delle, as we used to call her, went with all the rest of the village children to the village-school; she played with us, and rode, and walked, and went nutting with us, and was in all respects as we, only a great deal better, and more obliging, till, as I have said, she approached _’teen hood_. Then “trouble came down upon” the young child. One day the sun, which had always shone so cheerfully upon her, went behind a dark and hateful cloud, and an evil genius passing by her home, stamped upon the door the cross of poverty. From that day there was a sad change in little Delle; her voice became more hushed than ever in its tone, she rarely came to join us in our merry-makings—and there spread a thoughtful, sad expression over the face of the gentle child, which told she had heard unpleasant changes in the aforetime harmony of her life. The father of Delle had started in life with a purse alarmingly full of nothingness, but by slow and patient toil and care, he had worked himself into the possession of a comfortable living. Not content with this, one ever-to-be-lamented day he entered into a wild speculation, which, instead of at once doubling his fortune, left him in a far worse predicament than he was placed in at the beginning of life forty years before, when he had played a bare-footed boy in the streets, with scarcely a home to boast of. Yes, he was a great deal worse off than he was _then_, despite his present respectability, and his fine noble wife, and five children; because _then_ he was but a boy, brimful of hope, eager to enter into the contest of life, fearful of no failure, feeling he had “little to lose, and all to win.” Now his habits of ease and quiet had been so long fastening upon him, it really required no little strength of mind and purpose to rouse and labor as he had done in the days of his youth; his eagerness and hopefulness of spirit were gone—his ambition was departed; and when he looked on his five helpless little ones, the eldest but twelve years old, he felt as though the weight of a mountain were on his hands. Temptation comes well armed to such a mind, and not with unheard footsteps, or disregarded smile drew she nigh to him. She held the wine-cup to his lips—his eyes grew red with looking on the burning poison, and he tasted, and was lost! Not a hand lifted he to avert the dread calamity which he alone _could_ avert; not an effort did he make to re-establish once more the happiness of that household, when smiles and kind words were all the little group cared to have. About this time Sickness passed on heavy wing by this home of our little friend; she saw the cross her sister Poverty had marked upon the lintel, and she knew where she might rest. The _poor_ have no power to shut out the dark angel, when she pauseth before their open door.