face was more woful than you can think of, Sir. Every day, at the same hour, he brought the wheel-barrow to the garden gate, and kept it there till sunset; then, till he went to bed, he'd sit arranging the withered flowers in his waistcoat. He was never obstinate in refusing to do as he was desired; but unless he had been bidden to eat and drink, no morsel would have passed his lips. He never thought of hunger or of thirst. His little mistress, his old play-mate, and, as he thought her, his only friend, alone occupied the mind that never wandered now. It was fixed upon one object, and on that it dwelt. Ten months he pined and lingered for his loss, and then, more sensible than he had ever been before, poor George, Sir, died.' 'And happy for him that he is no more,' said I, anticipating the sequel of little Harri's story; 'he has gone down to the cold bed, it is true; but his pillow is far smoother than the down that is pressed in vain for quiet and repose by the heartless and unfeeling.' 'True, very true, Sir,' said David; and I was half in doubt whether the handkerchief would be put in requisition again; but it kept its place across the knees of my host, and Bessum continued: 'From the day she left us, Sir, we saw no more of our dear child for two years; but sad was the tale that reached us before she had been gone a month. Think of her wrongs, Sir. The man who had taken her to be parted but by death, left her the very next day after he had robbed scores of honest sighing hearts of the chance of proving the sincerity of their love by a life of cherishing and devotion.' 'God forgive him!' said David, 'for I fear I never can.' 'The gallows pardon him, for I never would,' cried I, in an ecstasy of vengeance and regret. 'And what became of the deserted wife?' Bessum, who had for nearly an hour stifled the feelings to which she was all that time hankering to give vent, finding this either too seasonable or powerful an occasion to resist, burst into tears, while David, as a counterpoise to the grief which he had heretofore monopolized, evinced a well-timed symptom of stoicism, by folding up his handkerchief at least three times as small as the usual dimensions to which laundresses or common consent have established, time out of mind, a limit; and then thrusting it into the salt-box pocket of his coat, as being the last place, at that particular crisis, to which, under the influence of his senses, he certainly must have intended its destination. 'I shall make short work of the rest on't, I promise you, Sir,' sobbed the tender-hearted foster-mother; 'it be n't much use to dwell upon the finish.' 'End it at once,' said I, impatient of farther melancholy detail.