"Henry, I can live with you and your wife no more. I should grow avaricious in my old age, were I to remain with you. I should long for money to call my own. Those doled out shillings which I received wakened within me feelings of a dark nature--covetousness, and envy, and discontent--which must have shadowed the happiness of your mother in heaven to look down upon. I must go and seek out an independent living for myself, even yet, though I am fifty-two. Though my energies for struggling with the world died, I thought, when your mother died, and, leaving my active business to you, I retired to live in the country, I must go forth again, as if I were young, to seek for the means of existence, for I feel I was not made to be a beggar--a creature hanging on the bounty of others; no, no, the merciful God will give me strength yet to provide for myself, though I am old, and broken down in mind and body. Farewell; you who were once my beloved son, may God soften and amend your heart." When Henry perused this letter, he would immediately have gone in search of his father, in order to induce him to return home; but Mrs. Lawson was at his side, and succeeded in persuading him to allow his father to act as he pleased, and remain away as long as he wished. * * * * * Ten years rolled over our world, sinking millions beneath the black waves of adverse fortune and fate, and raising the small number who, of the innumerable aspirants for earthly good, usually succeed. Henry Lawson was one of those whom time had lowered in fortune. His business speculations had, for a lengthened period, been rather unsuccessful, while Mrs. Lawson's expensive habits increased every day. At length affairs came to such a crisis, that retrenchment or failure was inevitable. Henry had enough of wisdom and spirit to insist on the first alternative, and Mrs. Lawson was compelled by the pressure of circumstances to yield in a certain degree; the country-house, therefore, was let, Mrs. Lawson assigning as a reason, that she had lost all relish for the country after the death of her dear children, both of whom had died, leaving the parents childless. It was the morning of a close sultry day in July, and Mrs. Lawson was seated in her drawing-room. She was dressed carefully and expensively as of old, but she had been dunned and threatened at least half-a-dozen times for the price of the satin dress she wore. Her face was thin and pale, and there was a look of much care on her countenance; her eyes were restless and sunken, and discontent spoke in their glances as she looked on the chairs, sofas, and window-draperies, which had once been bright-colored, but were now much faded. She had just come to the resolution of having new covers and hangings, though their mercer's and upholsterer's bills were long unsettled, when a visitor was shown into the room. It was Mrs. Thompson, the wife of a very prosperous and wealthy shopkeeper.