10 
THE LADIES' EL ORAL CABINET. 
saw some dead flowers, and I kuew by the long stalks 
what they were. Theu she kissed ’em all round, and 
followed her father out of the door without speaking a 
word. 
What I’m going to tell you now about Jerry. I didn’t 
see myself, but he's told it to me so many a time that 
I’ve got it all before me as clear and real as if I had 
seen it, and it had happened a week ago instead of forty 
years. 
It was Christmas eve, then, going on for eleven o’ the 
clock: Jerry sat by himself, finishing Jem Barnes’s 
Sunday boots, which he'd been patching up. 
The candle stood on a three-legged stool in front of 
him. and every now and then Jerry would look at 
it and each time he looked at it, his fingers flew 
faster. 
There were two inches of candle, aud there was what 
a quick man would call a good hour’s work. Two 
inches of candle aud not a scrap more in the house,— 
not a scrap more, most likely, in all the court. Few 
houses, indeed, at Gadshill-in-the-Fields had a scrap 
of bread in them that night, let alone candle or 
firing. 
Two inches of candle and a good hour's work to do ! 
Ic seemed as sure as fate the candle must go out before 
that work was done, yet Jerry looked at it and 
worked fiercer,—looked at it and worked fiercer. His 
dirty,pallid, flat-nailed fingers flew, and the candle 
burned. • 
It was a race that would have held your breath to 
watoh, a race for life or death. If Jerry's fingers won 
it, it was life.—if the candle won it, it was death : for 
while he worked so that he could tell if one second was 
shorter weight than another, there came from theup-stairs 
room faint cries and wailings. And Jerry knew what 
it was. He had heard it in many a house this winter : 
bat it had never been to his before. 
It was a wolf up there in that room,—a wolf gnawing 
away at his seven little children, and his poor sick wife.' 
—hunger it was, and it had come upon them sudden 
and savage, and Jerry knew that if it wasn’t driven off 
that night it mast devour them all away from him, de¬ 
vour him too, and the only thing he could drive it away 
with was the shilling he would get when he took Jem 
Barnes’ boots home. 
~So he rased with the candle till the drops came out 
thick on his forehead. 
There was one inch now, and there was more than 
half an hour's work to do. 
The candle burned and the fingers flew,—flew, ay, so 
fast, that every now and then Jerry felt in doubt as to 
whether they carried the thread along with them or 
not; but if he stopped to find out, his race was lo3t, for 
the candle had nothing to stop for, so he let ’em tremble 
and shake over the boot that was stuck between his 
knees. 
The fingers flew, and the candle burned ; the race was 
drawing to an end. 
The candle blazed up. 
Jerry stuck his last stitch. 
The wick fell and went out. 
Jeny hugged his boot, and gave a great cry. His job 
was done. 
"The moonlight falling through the dusty window 
showed him where his battered old hat lay on the chair. 
He snatched it up, and the fellow-boot, and ran out in 
his shirt-sleeves, calling up the dark narrow stairs' as he 
went by them.— 
"Take the little uns to you, Nance, and lceop ’em 
warm. I’ve done it, and I’ll bo back in a minute with 
some wittles.” 
•‘Back in a minute,” Jerry said; but it took him a 
sharpish run to got to Jem Barnes' house in five. 
When he got there, there wasn’t a light (o be seen in any 
of the windows. He knocked once. No one came. 
Twice,—still no one'eame. 
Jerry took hold of the knocker, and thumped it 
down every two seconds fierce and hard. Still no one 
came. 
By-aud-by old Constable Mullinger turned up the 
street to see what the noise was about. 
“Are you gone mad?" said he to Jerry. “ Don’t you 
see they’re all out? Be off about your business, or I’ll 
be helping you with your knocking." 
Jerry reeled back into the middle of the road, and 
stared up at the bouse. He had never thought of this. 
Had he run his race with the candle for nothing? 
No wonder old .Mullinger thought he was mad, to see 
him standing ihere'witliout his coat, his old hat stuck 
at the back of his head, and his boots in his hand, star¬ 
ing at the dark windows. Soon the cold began to go 
through aud through'him. and he turned shivering and 
half stupefied, aud went back home. 
Going in, he stumbled against the stairs and made a 
noise, and then he stood listening, feeling sure that all 
the seven little children would cry out to him for the 
food he had promised to be back with in a minute. 
No. All was still,—alFexcepthis own heart thump¬ 
ing away at the foot of the stairs. 
“They've fell asleep,” he said to himself; “ they won’t 
feel the wolf for a little while, not perhaps till I get 'em 
some work’us bread in the morning.” 
He wouldn’t go up for fear of disturbing them, so he 
went and sat on his bench in the dusky moonlight, and 
took up a boot of little Tommy’s and his awl, and 
tried to work, just for the sake of keeping himself 
from thinking, and from feeling the gnawing at his 
inside. 
He worked, but the thinking and the gnawing went 
on just the same. 
He worked, but the dark handsome face of Dan 
Harroway kept coming between him and little Tommy’s 
boot, making him grip his awl and breathe hard. 
He worked, but the loneliness and the gnawing 
made him get so light and as sharp in his wits that he 
couldu’t sit still, so he stood up with his work in his 
hand. 
By-and-by he dropped the boot, and stood still, not 
breathing at all, with the awl in his hand. 
A thought had come to him,—a thought of how t* 
muzzle the wolf. 
He went to the foot of the stairs and listened; still all 
was quiet. He kicked off his boots, and crept up, 
feeling by the damp wall. The door was open, and 
Jerry went in and stood in the middle of the room, look¬ 
ing at the row of ragged little beds that Jay along the 
splintery floor. The moonlight fell upon each wizened 
sharp face, and each wizened dirty hand lying over the 
patch-work quilts. 
(TO BZ CONTINUED). 
