"Are you Betty Mason's girl?"

"Yes, Sir," replied poor Mary, trembling.

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Well, did she leave money to pay my rent?" "Not that I know of, Sir."

"Then I must take what I can get," growled he. "In these hard times a man must look sharp after his own, if he does not mean to be cheated on all hands."

They all went into the house together. No opposition was made to the entrance of the bailiffs, and all stood silently by, as Judson and one of the men proceeded to tear down the furniture, while the other went for a cart to convey it away. Poor Mary'stood trembling, as the bright table and the clock, which she had had such pride and pleasure in polishing, were removed and carried off; and James began to cry when he saw some little prints of the Prodigal Son, which had long been his peculiar treasure and delight, seized and taken down; but nobody spoke till they began to move the beds, when Mrs. Lee's feelings would not any longer be controlled. "Surely," she exclaimed,

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you

I will not be so hard-hearted as to take the

bed from under them: and where

are the poor fatherless and motherless creatures to sleep

to-night?"

"There's the workhouse for them," replied Judson, who was one of the overseers of the poor, "and too good a place by half for them." At the sound of the workhouse both the children began to cry, and clung to their friend Mrs. Lee. Their sobs irritated Judson still more, and in a brutal tone he exclaimed, Come, bundle off with your things; we'll have no crying and roaring here. Molly Lee, take the children to the workhouse gate, and tell the master I sent them."

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"Oh! Mrs. Lee," cried Mary, " don't let us go to the workhouse, don't let us go to the workhouse." Mrs. Lee sat down on the window seat, and seemed lost in thought; at last she said, as if to herself, " I cannot contrive it any way."

"I am sure," said Mary, "I could do something for myself and James, if we did not go into the workhouse."

"You, child!" said Mrs. Lee, turning quickly round to her, "why what could you do?"

"I have helped my mother often at the glovemaking," she replied; "I think I could do that. There is a dozen pair in that box, that mother got before she was so ill, and could never finish; let me try if I can finish them."

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Well, Mary," said Mrs. Lee, her countenance brightening up with an idea that had just struck her, "I have thought of something. You know the little loft in the roof of our cottage; do you think, if we got some straw, you and Jemmy could sleep there for a bit, till we see if you can do any thing to keep yourselves? If I could I would be glad to do more than that for you, but God knows that is out of my power. It is as much as I can do to keep myself, and my poor crippled husband, and more too, sometimes; but if you can make shift in the loft for a while, you shall be kindly welcome to that, till -you have tried what you can do at the gloves; so come home with me, and let us leave this hard man."

Mary tied up the few clothes they possessed, and gave the bundle to James to carry, taking charge herself of her mother's Bible, and of the dozen pairs of gloves which she had not returned to the manufacturer in Worcester, for whom she worked. Before they left the cottage, Mrs. Lee told Judson, that the orphans were to find a shelter with her for the present, and asked whether they might not be allowed a trifle from the parish.

"Not a farthing," replied the angry over

seer, whom she interrupted in the act of carefully stowing his prey in the cart. "The house is open to them if they please, but if not, let them starve," added he, with a brutal oath. Mrs. Lee, with difficulty, smothered her resentment, and walked off briskly towards her own cottage, followed by the children, who could not trust themselves to take a last look of their own old home, but hurried after the only friend they had in the world.

Mrs. Lee's announcement of the shelter she had offered the children was received with a burst of querulous impatience by the poor paralytic old man who sat by the fireside in the single room of which the cottage consisted; but his wife, who was accustomed to the infirmities of his disease, heeded it but little, and busied herself in making the gruel for his supper, while she set Mary to scrape some potatoes for theirs. When both were boiling on the fire, she bade Mary follow her up the little ladder into the loft, which lay under the thatch of the house. It was a wretched place. Even the little girl could scarcely stand upright in any part of it, and the worn covering looked but little able to resist either wind or rain; but Mary, who had been brought up by her mother

in much of the honest pride of independence, felt, that if she and Jemmy could in any way manage to keep possession of it without taxing Mrs. Lee for their support, it would be a palace in her eyes. She swept it out, she wiped the single pane of glass by which it was dimly lighted, and she contrived to hang up an old ragged piece of patchwork, to divide the lowly chamber into two.

While these little preparations were making, Mrs. Lee went to a neighbouring farm where her husband had worked for many years, to beg a bundle of straw for the orphans to lie on. Farmer Goodwin, a kind-hearted man, happened just at that time to be superintending the littering down of his fine team, and willingly granted her request, loading her with a bundle, under which she could hardly be perceived as she staggered back; and desiring her to send the little boy to fetch a basket of potatoes for himself and his sister.

When the straw was spread for them, and they had eaten a hot potatoe for supper, they laid themselves down to rest. Mary's thoughts were working too busily for sleep soon to visit her lowly couch. She was trying to form some plan for the future for herself and her brother,