Seldom did the poor man even speak: there was gloom about that desolate house. His trade fell off, and his credit declined; and why? because his heart was broken. Day after day he sat in his lone counting-house; there was no bustle there. His books were covered with a thick coat of dust; and, as one by one his customers stepped off, so poverty stepped in, until at last he found himself almost a beggar. He shut his office-doors, shut them for the last time, then wiped away a tear, the first he had shed for many a day. He went home, but not to the home he used to have. His furniture had been sold to supply the common necessaries of life; and poor indeed was their now humble abode. There was silence in that little house, scarcely a whisper. In the secret fountains of his wife's heart there was still a depth of love for him; but, always when she would have breathed it forth, the strange horrid suspicion would flit across her brain--her child was not. He often looked at her, a long, earnest gaze, but he seldom spoke. One evening, he was more than usually sad. He kissed his children fondly. He took his wife's cold hand, and pressed it in his own. "Jessie," said he, "as ye have sown, so shall ye reap; but I forgive you. God bless you, wife!" He lay down upon his hard pallet, and when they would have roused him in the morning, he was dead. Time rolled on with rapid sweep, alas! bringing death and its attendant evils in his train. Two of the widow's children died; and Jane was now about eighteen years of age. Sorrow, rather than age, had already blanched the widow's hair. They were in great poverty; eked out a scanty livelihood with their needle. Indeed, their only certain dependence lay in the small assistance which Madame de Bourblanc sent from France. Perhaps, had that sister known the straits of her poor relatives, her paltry pittance might have been increased. They were perhaps too proud to make it known; as it was, she knew not, or, if she did, she heeded not. About this time a letter reached the widow from her sister. Besides containing the usual remittance, the letter was unusually long. She requested Jane to read it to her, while she sat and sewed. What ailed the girl, her mother thought, as Jane gazed upon the page with some indescribable emotions depicted on her face. "Mother," she cried, "my sister lives! your child is found again!" The widow tore the letter from her daughter's hand, and read it eagerly, while her face grew paler every moment. She gasped for utterance; and the mystery was solved at last.