"Why, I've had a hard life on't, since I seen you, when my school was broke up; and I've called to see--I was too proud once to come of such an arrant--but I thought 'twas likely you would not see a poor family suffering in such a storm as this." "Surely not--if it is in my power to render assistance." "Well, I thought as much--and I've called to see if you have not some second-hand clothes, and a little something to eat, that you can give us--or any thing else that you can spare--for we are in very great distress." "Indeed--in actual want--of food and clothes, did you say? What has brought---- "O, don't ask--that woman there--I little thought I should ever come to this." "Why have you not informed me of it before? Pray what is the matter with your hand, doctor?" "I accidentally run a gouge through it, and hain't been able to do any work since. We had nothing to live upon. My hands were my only resources from day to day;--my working tools, and every article of furniture in the house, to the last blanket, the last shirt, and my wife's last shawl, have been pawned at the broker's, to enable us to keep the breath of life in us. We have now neither a stick of wood to burn, nor a morsel to eat!" "Can it be possible, my dear sir, that you are reduced to a condition so deplorable? Why have you not been to see me sooner?" "I was ashamed." "But you need not have been. You should not have been left to suffer deprivations like these." "I knew that, very well; but after all that has happened, I wished to bury myself, and never see the face of an old friend again. I hoped to live through, until my hand got well, and then I could have gone to work again." "Work? What work?" "You know I had partly larnt a trade once--pity I ever left it!--and as I retained knowledge enough of the use of tools to make common bedsteads, after my school run down, and my visions of property all vanished, I engaged in that business, and have contrived to get a poor living by it ever since, until I cut my hand so dreadfully." "But your wife--cannot she do something with her needle?" "What! that woman?"---- He paused, and heaved a deep sigh. It was a bitter exclamation, from the heart. "No," he continued. "She has no faculty for getting along. She does nothing but harass my life out." "A misfortune, in-- "True enough, I missed the fortune; and I should not have come to you now, but that we are freezing, and the children were shivering and crying for something to eat, when I left." "Children! How many have you?" "The woman, you know, had one when I married her, and we have had two since. One of these is dead. I am not sorry. Poor little fellow! he is much better off." But it is needless to continue the colloquy. My heart bled for him. His tale of want and woe was told with the honest simplicity of truth. He did not shed any tears, but looked as though he was past weeping--like the personification of disappointment and despair.