"Ay, bless her heart! I love her!" thought Mary, as she led her little girl back into the small room which she hired by the week, in one of the back streets of London. "But if God pities me, like as a father pitieth his children, why does he so often leave me to want, why does he make my lot so hard? I'm sure I'd keep my darling from every trouble if I could, and if I had the means, she should sleep as soft, and fare as well as any little lady in the land!" And in truth Mary Cowell was a kind and tender mother. The child had ever the largest share of the scanty meal, and while the mother's shawl was threadbare, soft and warm was the knitted tippet that wrapt the little girl. Mary took a pride in her Emmy; she never suffered her to run about the streets dirty and barefoot like many of the children of her neighbours. Emmy's face was washed, and her yellow curls were smoothed out every morning, and proudly did the fond mother look at her little darling. The greatest sorrow which poverty brought to Mary Cowell, was that it hindered her from giving every comfort and pleasure to her child. "Mother," said Emmy on the following day, as she watched the widow preparing to go out, putting on her rusty black bonnet and thin patched shawl; "mother, you won't take the basket; it's Sunday; I hears the bells a-ringing." "I must go," said Mary with a sigh. "But didn't the good man tell us it was bad to go out a-sellin' on the Sunday?" asked the child, with a grave look of inquiry in her innocent eyes. "Poor folk must eat," said the widow sadly; "God will not be hard upon us if want drives us to do what we never should do if we'd only enough to live on." "May Emmy go wid you, mother?" "No, my lamb," answered Mary, "not to stand at the corner of the street in this bitter sharp wind, and just catch your death of cold. It chills one to the bones," added the widow, stirring up in her little grate the fire which burned brightly and briskly, for the weather was frosty and keen. Mary then took the remains of the morning's meal, the half loaf and small jug of milk, and put them on the mantel-piece, out of reach of the child. Her last care was to place a wire-guard before the fire. Having often to leave her little girl alone in the room, Mary dreaded her falling into danger, and had, by self-denial, scraped up a sufficient number of pence, to buy an old wire fire-guard. "Now remain quiet there, my jewel! Don't get into mischief," said Mary. "Look at the pretty prints on the wall; mother won't be long afore she comes back with something nice for her darling!" So saying the widow kissed the child, took up her basket, and went to the door. "Good-bye, mother!" cried Emmy. The last sound which Mary heard as she went down the old creaking stair was the "good-bye" from the sweet little voice whose tones she loved so well.