When Edith was about seventeen years old Mrs. Quintin finally yielded to the ravages of that dread destroyer, consumption. The poor girl wept sadly and bitterly at the loss of her mother, the only one indeed the poor child had ever known, and poor Quintin wept sadly as he thought of his wife’s brief and unhappy career. He removed with his daughter into furnished lodgings, not wishing the child to be burdened too soon with the cares of house-keeping. What he would not allow her to do for him, however, she soon became very anxious to do for another, and the days of her mourning were not long passed when she became the happy wife of a young man named Wentworth, bookkeeper in one of the leading hardware firms in Montreal. She has now children of her own, and the youngsters’ greatest delight is to gather round their grandfather’s knee while he astonishes them with stories. To them nor to no one else, however, has he told, even as I have done, the story of the frail shop-girl, who from being young and handsome, and the belle of her circle of acquaintances, became a wretched and deceitful woman, diseased both in body and mind, and finally sank into a premature grave. Out on this heartless, brutal system, and the thoughtlessness and ignorance which permit it! I hope the narrative given above may cause some of those at least who engage in this barbarous system to pause and give the great problem of life, capital and labor, a few moments thought that they may see the error of their way, and that poor Esther Quintin may not have died in vain. CHAPTER VIII. The Two Orphans One evening, about a dozen years before the introduction of the present system of fire alarms into Montreal, crowds might be seen hurrying along that part of the city known as Little St. James street, towards the scene of an immense conflagration. Several fire engines were throwing strong streams of water on the burning mass, but, the evening being windy, the fire swept all before it, and soon reduced several buildings to ashes. In one of these resided Mr. Wilson, Notary Public, and his two daughters, the eldest a beautiful girl about 9 years old, the other aged nearly 8. When the fire commenced they were seated calmly at the tea-table, partaking of their evening meal, but, so sudden was the holocaust which burst with tremendous fury around them that they had not the slightest warning till they were surrounded with dense volumes of smoke The two girls rushed forward to the window, and screamed for assistance, while the old man endeavored to gather some of his most valuable papers together and throw them into the street.