“Well, of course I’ll go to market, and I’ll settle the house-rent; but I suppose (drawing an almost empty purse from his pocket) you will furnish the money, as I believe I am about broke.” “Why, dear me,” she exclaimed, with lengthened face and fading color, “is it possible you have come back home without money? You are surely jesting.” “Indeed, my dear wife, I am in dead earnest. All I have in the world is this five dollar bill,” For the first time in all their troubles, she lost faith and hope, and was helpless. Overcome by emotion and unable to speak, she dropped into a chair, sobbing. When the power of speech returned, she bewailed their condition: “Oh! oh! just think to what we have come. Here we are a thousand miles from home. If we were there, enemies are ready to kill us. Here we are among strangers, in a rented house--rent due--provisions all gone--thirteen in family--and only that five dollar bill between us and starvation.” Confessedly, the case had a dark outlook, and to any person of desponding mind it would appear desperate. Her paroxysms of grief brought all the household together; they stood around in deep, silent sympathy; but the head of the family soon rallied courage to speak in a tone of cheerfulness, not very well sustained: “My dear wife, I am astonished at your want of faith and extravagant apprehensions. We are indeed among strangers, but they are our friends. Would the Lord lead us through all the dangers we have survived, only to let us starve here in a peaceful, prosperous land? And that, when we are in His service--working for the poor and destitute in unhappy East Tennessee? Away with your fears, and be assured that the same God who has led us safely so far, will lead us safely to the end.” Her mind was calmed by these words, but they failed to remove all its doubts and forebodings. Next morning, the husband went to Philadelphia, armed with a bushel market basket, and after payment for a round ticket by railroad, with his five dollar bill distressingly reduced in size. Prices of provisions were high. He had to buy inferior qualities to supply the needful quantity, and to use thought and skill lest his little means prove unequal to the occasion. At length he started homeward, with the basket cheaply but plentifully filled, and in passing through Haddonfield was hailed by the postmaster and given a letter for his wife. It was postmarked at Boston. Who could have sent it? “Perhaps some of our rebel kin,” he thought, “have been captured and taken to that city, and have written to her.” All day he had been praying inaudibly to the Lord for help, and he believed it would come, but all his forecastings as to the whence, how and when of its coming, had only been perplexing. He did not dream it would be from strangers and a distance; yet his curiosity was so keen to know who had written the letter that, contrary to his habit, he broke the seal and read.