The widow's chagrin was as great now as her hopes had been high a few minutes before, and she said at once that she did not know any one who would become security, at which Mr. Sturt was turning coldly away; but suddenly thinking of her cousin, she said to herself that he would surely not refuse her this one favor, and she told Mr. Sturt that she would try and come again, and timidly gave that gentleman her address. As soon as the widow's back was turned, Mr. Sturt threw the address on the floor, for he was perfectly sure of having plenty of applications, and it did not matter to him whether the widow ever came again or not; but Thomas Winthorpe, who was employed in a different department of the business, happened to be a witness of the scene, had seen the widow's hand shake, and lips quiver with hope and disappointment, and had marked the anxious look of Kate; and with that sympathy which past poverty so often begets for the poor, he picked up the "rejected address," resolving that he would inquire, and if Mrs. Stevens and her daughter deserved it, he would help them to the work. It was more than a year since Mrs. Stevens had seen her rich cousin, and when she hastened to his house to prefer her humble petition it was shut up, and all the information she could gain from the neighbors was, that Mr. Norton had gone no one knew whither. This was a sad blow to Mrs. Stevens and Kate; what to do they knew not, and as they wended their way back to their now almost destitute home, their poverty appeared more hopeless than ever; for disappointment is far harder to bear than mere trouble, just as the sky never looks so dismal and threatening as when a bright ray has just departed, and the sun has sunk behind a thick, dark cloud. Thomas Winthorpe, however, carried his good intention into effect directly he left business, and little as he was able to glean in their neighborhood of their life and past history, he was convinced that Mrs. Stevens and her daughter deserved help. How, however, to afford them assistance without wounding their feelings was for some time a difficult question; but at last he determined to become surety for them at the shop without their knowledge, and then to call, as if it were a matter of business, and tell them that they could have work.