As she spoke, the door opened, and a woman entered. She was a pale, worn-looking creature, and she carried on her head a bundle so large that Marian wondered how she had contrived to support it. She placed it down with some difficulty, and then, looking at the card-players with a scornful countenance, she addressed some words to one among the number. The noise caused by the dispute was so great that Marian could not exactly catch their import, but they seemed mixed up with taunts and reproaches, and the woman pointed, as she uttered them, to the bundle which she had just before deposited upon the floor. The man, before angry, seemed irritated to madness by her words and her manner: he started up, and struck her violently--she fell to the ground. Marian covered her face with her hands. When she removed them, she found herself once more in the street. As the fairy prepared to lead the way into another dwelling, Marian hung back. "Let me go away," said she; "I wish to see no more of such dreadful scenes." "Fear not," said her guide; "you have not yet seen my talisman. It is worn in this dwelling, and where it is worn scenes such as you have just witnessed never occur." Marian felt compelled to follow, but she did so unwillingly. The room they now entered bore as strongly the evidences of poverty as had done the one they visited before, but it did not look so utterly wretched. There was a greater air of cleanliness and decency throughout the apartment, and also in the appearance of its inmates. A woman sat sewing by the side of a table. Her emaciated form, pallid features, and deeply-lined countenance, spoke of want, and toil, and woe; but there was something that made the eye dwell with complacency on that wasted figure, clad in rags, and surrounded by all the externals of the most sordid poverty. Yes, that was it! There was the talisman! it shone serenely on this poor woman's brow, and lighted up all that wretched hovel with its heavenly radiance! It was reflected on the faces of the pallid children; the two younger of whom were playing on the floor, while the elder girl, seated on a stool at her mother's feet, was nursing a baby. The baby was poorly and fretful, and, at last, the little girl, wearied with its restlessness, looked beseechingly toward her mother. Her mother could ill spare a moment from her work, but she laid it down, and took up the suffering infant. Ill as it was, the talisman seemed to have a charm even for it--its cry became less frequent, and it soon fell into a quiet sleep. The woman laid it quietly down, and resumed her employment. She was scarcely seated, when a footstep approached the door. "Father!" cried one of the little ones, in a tone of pleasure, and toddled toward the door.