During the remaining half of each day and evening, she would make a vest or a pair of pantaloons, which at the end of the week would bring her in seventy-five cents. When she looked at this small sum, the aggregate of a week's labour, during leisure from the concerns of her family, she felt but little encouraged in prospect of having the whole of her little family dependent upon her; and for some weeks she entertained, in the silence of her own heart, a sickening consciousness of coming destitution, which she might in vain endeavour to prevent. Gradually her mind reacted from this painful state, and she gave daily diligence to her employments, entertaining a firm trust in Divine Providence. As the spring opened, her husband's health revived a little, and he found employment at a small compensation in a retail dry-goods store. This just suited his strength and the state of his health, and he continued at it for something like three years. During this period nothing of material interest occurred, and we pass it over in silence. The long-looked-for, long-dreaded time, when Wilmer's health should entirely give way, at length came; and although through the kindness of his employers he had been retained in the store long after he was able to do his full duty, yet at last he had to give up. It would require a pen more skilled to portray the workings of the human heart, than mine, to sketch his real feelings, when he received his last month's wages; the last that he felt he would ever earn for his family, and turned his steps homeward. He loved the wife who had forsaken the wealth and comfort of a father's house, and had been all in all to him through sunshine and storm, with deep and tearful affection; he would have sacrificed everything for her; and yet for years had he been compelled to see her toil for a portion of the bread that nourished her and her children. He loved his little ones, with a yearning tenderness; the more fervently and passionately, now that he could no longer minister to their wants. How could he meet them all on this evening, and see their dear faces brighten up on his entrance, when he could no longer earn them food, or provide them with comforts? It was with a strong effort that he kept down his feelings. as he entered his home, now comprised in two rooms in the second story of an old house in Commerce street, where they had removed, to be nearer his place of business, the long walk having been too fatiguing for him, after standing behind the counter all day. Mrs. Wilmer's quick eye at once detected a change in the expression of her husband's countenance, but she said nothing. After tea, the children were all put to bed in the next room, and they were then alone. Wilmer sat in deep thought by the table, shading his face with his sand when his wife came in from the chamber where she had been with the children. Twining her arm round his neck, she bent over him, and said, in a tone of tender concern--