"If you please, sir, I want to go away to-day." "Oh, no, Tom, don't go away to-day, you remember what you promised to do for Madalina." "Yes, sir, and I am going to do it. I am going to see where they put her, and then I will plant a flower there, and I will water it too, and that is not all, either, that I am going to do with water before I die. I am going to teach people to drink it, and not drink rum." "Going to see where they put her?" "Yes, sir." "Tom, do I understand you?" "I don't know, sir, she did." "Tell me, my boy, what you mean. You seem a little wild, your eyes are very red. Did you sleep any last night?" "Sleep! could you sleep, with those words ringing in your ears all night? Her last words--she never spoke again." "By this time I had reached the window. I looked out. There was a 'poor house hearse' in Cow Bay. A little coffin was brought down and put in, and it moved away. It carried the Rag-picker's Daughter." CHAPTER XII. ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL. "Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths: "Win us with honest trifles, to betray us In deepest consequence." At the close of chapter nine, we left Athalia standing by the side of her trunk and bandbox on the sidewalk, in front of her now empty home. After paying up the rent, and a few outstanding little bills, she had but a scanty store left in her little purse. Of this she set apart, as a sacred deposit, almost the entire sum, to redeem her Bible and watch--the locket at any rate. Now she wished she could see Nannette, for she was the only instrument she knew, that she could employ in the negociation. She could not go where she lived, for fear of meeting Walter, whom she had determined never to see again. She had sent for a hack to take her away, she really knew not where. She had but few, except business acquaintances in the city; none upon whom she felt willing to call in her emergency. She felt so cast down, that she could not look one of them in the face. She had made up her mind to go to a hotel for the night, and leave the city in the morning; whither she knew not; anywhere to get away, Then she thought that she could not go without seeing Nannette, and making an effort to regain her valued keepsakes How should she see her? what should she do? It is an old proverb, "Wish for the devil and he will appear." Just then a carriage drove up and stopped where she stood. She was so certain it was the one she had sent for, that she did not observe that it contained two ladies, until the driver had opened the door, and one of them spoke. "Why, Mrs. Morgan, are you going away? How unfortunate. I wanted three or four dresses made. When will you be back?" When? How could she tell, since she did not know where she was going? She was in a fever of excitement to go somewhere, to get away before Walter should come. She felt as though it would kill her to see him then.