A sick and suffering child is one of the most distressing objects in nature, especially when that child is but a babe, and cannot, as the nurses say, "tell where its trouble is," and can only look at you with its pleading eyes, as if imploring the relief you cannot give. You who have ever had an ill and suffering infant, always pining and moaning with its aching head, too heavy for the slender, attenuated neck, dropped upon its nurse's or its mother's shoulder, yet still often looking up with a faint little smile to greet you when you come to take it, or piteously holding out its emaciated arms to coax you back when you are called to leave it--you can estimate the distress of the poor young father, living three miles distant from the sick child, that might at any hour grow suddenly worse, and die; and only permitted to visit it occasionally at the pleasure of others. Fannie's health, never strong, began to fail; loss of rest night after night, with the sick child, joined to the fatiguing duties of her situation, which she was still obliged to retain as a means of support, exhausted her strength. The poor infant, bereft all day of both parents, and left in charge of an old, free negress, that lived near the shop, had the sad, unnatural grief of home-sickness added to its other suffering, and so pined and failed day by day. This state of things lasted for some weeks. After a night of suffering to the child and sleeplessness to herself, Fannie would rise in the morning, and, though nearly blind, giddy and fainting from habitual loss of rest, she would set her room in order, eat a morsel of breakfast, bathe and dress the little one, collect all the articles it would need, and prepare its food and medicine for the day; and, lastly, dress herself with neatness and taste, for it was very necessary that the shop girl should look as well as possible; take her sick babe in one arm, and its basket of necessaries in the other, lock her door, and set out for the shop, stopping on her way to leave the child and its basket at Aunt Peggy's hut, where there was no cradle or rocking-chair, but, what was perhaps as well, a pallet laid in the coolest part of the room. Here Fannie would sit and rest a moment, while she nursed her child, and then she would lay it down upon the pallet and leave it, thankful if the little creature happened to be sleeping peacefully, wretched if it chanced to be wakeful and to be wailing after its mother. One morning, when Fannie had lingered beyond her hour for going to the store, trying to put to sleep or to pacify the suffering child, she finally laid it down upon the pallet, and, with many kisses and soothing words and promises to come back soon, tore herself away; but, just as she reached the door the little one struggled upon its feeble limbs, staggered toward her, and fell, with its weak hand clasping her skirts.