The explanation was soon given. There was a certain Mrs. Woodley, the maternal aunt of Mrs. Clifton, who, offended at her imprudent marriage, had refused to hold any intercourse with her. This lady had a son pursuing his studies in the metropolis, who had accidentally heard Minnie’s story told by a benevolent physician. To Hubert Woodley such a story would have been felt as a call upon his sympathies under any circumstances, but when he found upon inquiry that the child was his own blood relation, he acted promptly and decidedly. Minnie was removed to healthy country lodgings, and when all danger was over he wrote to his mother requesting her to give Minnie a home with her for the future. To his doting parents Hubert’s will was law, and he was fully authorized to bring his little cousin home as soon as her health would bear the journey. How many people there are in the world who perform all the duties of life, and apparently enjoy a fair proportion of its pleasures, yet are as utterly deficient in all that goes to constitute a warm, generous, sympathizing heart, as if they had been mere animals! They are like machines, moving with clock-like regularity in their own narrow circle, doing exactly what their “hands find to do,” but never seeming to suspect that the head might suggest, or the heart might impel to higher duties or broader responsibilities. Such were the new friends who now came forward to claim the friendless orphan. Mr. and Mrs. Woodley were dull, plodding, commonplace people, who had begun life in a very small way, and by close attention to the “day of small things,” had grown moderately rich, exceedingly selfish, and tolerably fat. Mr. Woodley had made his fortune by such minute accumulations that he might perhaps be pardoned for literally believing that “Trifles make the sum of human things.”