They had managed to earn a comfortable living until the husband and father suddenly died, since which time the wife's health had been very rapidly failing, until now she was no longer able to work, but was wholly dependent for subsistence upon the exertions of her oldest child Frank, and the charity of the villagers, who sometimes supplied her with far more than was necessary, and again thoughtlessly neglected her for many days. Her chief dependence, too, had now failed her, for the day before the sewing society, Frank had been taken seriously ill with what threatened to be scarlet fever. "Dear me," said the elegant Mrs. Campbell, smoothing the folds of her rich India muslin--"dear me, I did not know that we had such poverty among us. What will they do?" "They'll have to go to the poor-house, won't they?" "To the poor-house!" repeated Mrs. Lincoln, who spent her winters in Boston, and whose summer residence was in the neighborhood of the pauper's home, "pray don't send any more low, vicious children to the poor-house. My Jenny has a perfect passion for them, and it is with difficulty I can keep her away." "They are English, I believe," continued Mrs. Campbell. "I do wonder why so many of those horridly miserable creatures will come to this country." "Forgets, mebby, that she's English," muttered the woman at the door; and Mrs. Johnson added, "It would draw tears from your eyes, to see that little pale-faced Mary trying to wait upon her mother and brother, and carrying that sickly baby in her arms so that it may not disturb them." "What does Ella do?" asked one, and Mrs. Johnson replied, "She merely fixes her curls in the broken looking-glass, and cries because she is hungry." "She is pretty, I believe?" said Mrs. Campbell, and Rosa Pond, who sat by the window, and had not spoken before, immediately answered, "Oh, yes, she is perfectly beautiful; and do you know, Mrs. Campbell, that when she is dressed clean and nice, I think she looks almost exactly like your little Ella!" A haughty frown was Mrs. Campbell's only answer, and Rosa did not venture another remark, although several whispered to her that they, too, had frequently observed the strong resemblance between Ella Howard and Ella Campbell. From what has been said, the reader will readily understand that the sick woman in whom Mrs. Johnson was so much interested, was our old acquaintance Mrs. Howard. All inquiries for her sisters had been fruitless, and after stopping for a time in Worcester, they had removed to Chicopee, where recently Mr. Howard had died. Their only source of maintenance was thus cut off, and now they were reduced to the utmost poverty. Since we last saw them a sickly baby had been added to their number. With motherly care little Mary each day washed and dressed it, and then hour after hour carried it in her arms, trying to still its feeble moans, which fell so sadly on the ear of her invalid mother.