In the evenings she lay back in her bee-hive chair, and read to me. I think I see her now, pale and weak, with her sweet young face, lighted by her holy, earnest eyes, telling me of the Saviour's life and death, till they were filled with tears. I longed to have been there, to have avenged him on the wicked Jews. I liked Peter the best of all the disciples. But I got the Bible myself, and read the mighty acts of God's vengeance in the Old Testament, with a kind of triumphant faith, that, sooner or later, He would take my cause in hand, and revenge me on mine enemy. In a year or so, Nelly had a baby--a little girl, with eyes just like hers, that looked with a grave openness right into yours. Nelly recovered but slowly. It was just before winter, the cotton-crop had failed, and master had to turn off many hands. I thought I was sure of being kept on, for I had earned a steady character, and did my work well; but once again it was permitted that Dick Jackson should do me wrong. He induced his father to dismiss me among the first in my branch of the business; and there was I, just before winter set in, with a wife and new-born child, and a small enough store of money to keep body and soul together, till I could get to work again. All my savings had gone by Christmas Eve, and we sat in the house foodless for the morrow's festival. Nelly looked pinched and worn; the baby cried for a larger supply of milk than its poor starving mother could give it. My right hand had not forgot its cunning; and I went out once more to my poaching. I knew where the gang met; and I knew what a welcome back I should have--a far warmer and more hearty welcome than good men had given me when I tried to enter their ranks. On the road to the meeting-place I fell in with an old man--one who had been a companion to my father in his early days. "What, lad!" said he, "art thou turning back to the old trade? It's the better business now, that cotton has failed." "Ay," said I, "cotton is starving us outright. A man may bear a deal himself, but he'll do aught bad and sinful to save his wife and child." "Nay, lad," said he, "poaching is not sinful; it goes against man's laws, but not against God's."