In sobbing anguish, in cowering shame, in comparative privation, a little weeping, helpless, weak boy was ushered into life. Oh! had that proud woman, the parent of the young mother, been present in that close chamber, where lay fainting the “flower of her flock,” her heartless pride must have received a blow which could scarcely have failed to prove beneficial to her humanity! It must surely have roused up some of those better feelings of womanly nature, of which none of the sex are wholly divested, unless they are lost indeed. Upon a poorly furnished but clean bed lay stretched Helen Grahame, attended only by her ministering angel, Lotte Clinton. The sudden and wholly unexpected interview with Lester Vane, the subsequent flight, with all its attendant anxieties, and apprehensions, and fatigues, all combined to do their work upon her weak frame. At the expiration of three weeks, she was, however, so far recovered as to move about again; while Lotte was ill enough--although she would not acknowledge so much--to take her place in the bed Helen had quitted. She had been Helen’s gentle nurse; and had attended her with patient, unwearying assiduity. It was during this period that Helen’s little store of money was, for the first time, broken in upon.. Before the birth of the child, Lotte had been enabled to earn enough to support both--but to save nothing. When the time came that her whole attention was absorbed by Helen’s helpless prostration, her labours with her needle were necessarily stopped; but now that Helen had strength to get about again, and the money-hoard was growing very low, it became necessary that she should once more return to her close application in the task of bread-winning. Was there not another claim, too, now upon her exertion? The little healthy, bright-eyed boy--of whom, unconsciously, she grew so fond, and who was caressed and fondled by its young mother with such passionate devotion that she had no eyes or thought for aught else--seemed to call upon her to redouble her efforts, that he might be spared the fatal consequences of wasting privation. One night she quietly explained to Helen their position and the necessity there would be for her to again apply to the persons who had last employed her, to furnish her with work. “I will be careful,” she said, “to avoid the chances of our residence being discovered; but we are not fairies, you know, Helen--we must eat and drink, and pay our way.” Helen turned her large, dark, eyes upon her face, and fixed them there; she did not reply, for she had made a discovery. “I shall be sure to obtain as much as I can do,” continued Lotte, thoughtfully, “enough, I am convinced, by sitting close to my work, to support us all, comfortably. You can devote your time to dear little Hugh, so as to keep him smiling and well, and I can do the rest--all the rest.”