RECOLLECTIONS OF POVERTY. 179 



Again I enquired. I was told that he had lain down unwell ; but there 

 was an air of troubled anxiety about those around me. I feared some 

 accident had befallen him. I was miserable, and entreated them to 

 tell me the worst. Suddenly I heard a loud cry, expressive of the 

 deepest agony. I knew it was my husband. I swooned away. 



'* I never saw him again. On that fatal day he had been hor- 

 ribly mutilated by machinery. There was no hope of his recovery 

 unless he underwent a severe and painful operation. Willing to pre- 

 serve his life to his family, he submitted. It was the cruel torture 

 of the knife that extorted from him that cry which went to my heart 

 1 seem to hear it even now, ringing horribly in my ears." 



She paused a few moments, and then, continued thus : "When I 

 came to myself, my first enquiry was about my husband. They 

 hesitated to tell me, but I determined to know the truth. He was 

 dead ; he had not survived the shock of the operation. The same 

 evening my sick children died. Misfortune had then done its utmost. 

 Grief had reached a point beyond which it could not pass. I gazed 

 vacantly on the mournful scene around me. I saw the corpses of 

 my dear children laid out in all the sad apparel of death. I heard the 

 slow and measured tread of the bearers as they conveyed my beloved 

 husband to his last home ; but I lay all the while in silence and me- 

 lancholy abstraction, refusing nourishment, scarcely conscious of what 

 was passing around, and, had not some kind neighbours shown me 

 the most assiduous attention, I should soon have followed him to the 

 grave, 



" It was not till three weeks had passed by that I was able to leave 

 my bed, improved in health, but feelingly alive to the circumstances 

 of my distressed situation, I was a lone widow with three helpless 

 children, worn by disease and sorrow, far distant from my friends, 

 in a strange city. Poverty, abject poverty, was before me. The little 

 that we had saved from our earnings had been expended during our 

 late season of misfortune and sickness. After some hesitation, I sold 

 all my furniture, and with my children set off on foot for London. 



" We had not proceeded far on our journey when a severe attack 

 of illness detained us for some days at a small village on the road- 

 side. As soon as I was able 1 hastened hither. Immediately, I 

 wrote to my mother requesting her to corne to me, or send something- 

 for our relief. I have not yet heard from her. If I receive no 

 tidings before to-morrow evening, my little stock of money, which I 

 have apportioned in small sums for our daily maintenance, will be 

 exhausted. But, so long as utter destitution does not compel me, I 

 cannot receive of any one that which I have no prospect of paying 

 again*" 



I admired her strict sense of honesty, but was grieved that it had 

 been productive of much unnecessary suffering. 



The next day when I visited her, I saw a stranger seated at her 

 bedside. She motioned to me to tread lightly, lest I should disturb 

 the poor sufferer, who seemed in a calm sleep. I stepped softly up 

 to her. She was dead. It was her mother who sat by her. 



As I gazed on her calm and composed features, placid even in 

 death, involuntarily I exclaimed : 



