the master of the family was absent, because he was in distress, and his
life was in danger. Every day his fond wife visited him in his prison.
She left her babe under the care of Mary, and set out with a little
basket in her hand. After walking two miles through the streets of Ava,
she came to some high walls--she knocked at the gate--a stern-looking
man opened it. The lady, passing through the gates, entered a court. In
one corner of the court, there was a little shed made of bamboos, and
near it, upon a mat, eat a pale, and sorrowful man. His countenance
brightens when he perceives the lady enter. She refreshes him with the
nice food she has brought in her basket, and comforts him with sweet and
heavenly words:--then hastens to return to her babe. As soon as she
enters her cottage, she sinks back, half fainting, in her rocking-chair,
while she folds again her little darling in her arms. Happy babe! thy
parents are suffering for Jesus--and they are blessed of the Lord, and
their baby with them.

Greater sorrows still, soon befell the little family. One day, a
messenger came to the cottage, with the sad tidings that the bamboo hut
had been torn down, the mat, and pillow taken away, and the prisoner,
laden with chains, thrust into the inner prison. The loving wife hastened
to the governor of the city to ask for mercy; but she could obtain none,
only she was permitted to see her husband. And _what_ a sight! He was
shut up in a room with a hundred men, and without a _window!!_ Though the
weather was hot no breath of air reached the poor prisoners, but through
the cracks in the boards. No wonder that the missionary soon fell ill of
a fever. His wife, fearing he would die, determined to act like the widow
in the parable, and to weary the unjust judge by her entreaties. She left
her quiet cottage, and built a hut of bamboos at the governor's gate,
and there she lived with her babe, and the little Burmese girls. The
prison was just opposite the governor's gate, so that the anxious wife