Fannie burst into tears, took the babe up in her arms, sat down upon a chair, and, pressing the little sufferer to her bosom, caressed and soothed it, and promised never to leave it again; and, speaking to the old woman, said: "Please go over to Leroux's, Aunt Peggy, and tell monsieur that I can't come to-day on account of poor little Coralie; and I don't know when I can come--so he may, if he chooses, look out for somebody else to fill my place." The prudent old woman expostulated, asked Fannie what she would do for a living if she gave up her situation at Leroux's, and advised her to hold fast, saying that the child might die, and then, there! she couldn't get the place again so easy as she had lost it. But Fannie was firm. Pressing the infant closer to her bosom, she replied: Yes; that little Coralie might die, and then the thought of how often she had left the poor baby grieving for her mother would break her heart; that it was no use for any one to talk; come what might, she never would leave the sick child again. Aunt Peggy carried the message, and brought back the reply that Madam Leroux had always expected this trouble to come upon Fannie; that she had always said so; and that Fannie would find her words true, that this was only the beginning of the troubles she would meet, for having been so lost to her own interest as to marry a handsome slave man, whose very hands were not his own, to help her. Fannie said that she would trust in God, unto death and beyond death; for that often she thought the best way in which He could right His children's wrongs, and comfort their afflictions, was by taking them from this sad world to His own heaven. Truly, the poor young creature needed all this faith to enable her to bear the troubles that were, and those that were to come. She carried little Coralie back to her own poor room. She sought out what plain sewing and clear starching she could get to do in her own home; but this was very little, now that so many of the ladies and gentlemen among whom she hoped to get employment had left the city for the Northern watering-places. It brought her a very scanty income; and as, out of this, room rent, fuel, light, food, clothing, medicine and other incidental expenses had to be paid, and as, besides, she would not suffer little Coralie to want any comfort, or even any luxury, that she could procure for her by her own exertions and self-denial, it followed, of course, that she herself went without a sufficiency of the real necessaries of life; and so, privation being added to her other ills, accelerated the decline of her health. Valentine could only come to see them once a week. He would come Sunday morning, spend the day in nursing his darling, tear himself from her clinging baby arms, and return, almost broken-hearted, at night.