"Och, yer honor, give me one sixpence, or one penny, for God's sake,"
cried a voice from the other side of a fancy paling which separated
the grounds in that quarter from a thoroughfare. "For heaven's sake,
Mr. Lawson, help me as ye helped me before. I know you've the heart
and the hand to do it."

The person addressed as Mr. Lawson looked up and saw a woman whom he
knew to be in most destitute circumstances, burdened with a large and
sickly family, whom she had struggled to support until her own health
was ruined.

"I have no money--not one farthing," answered John Lawson.

"No money!" reiterated the woman, in surprise: "isn't it all yours,
then?--isn't this garden yours, and that house, and all the grand
things that are in it yours?--ay, and grand things they are--them
pictures, and them bright shinin' things in that drawing-room of
yours; and sure you deserve them well, and may God preserve them long
to you, for riches hasn't hardened your heart, though there's many a
one, and heaven knows the gold turns their feelin's to iron."

"It all belongs to my son, Henry Lawson, and Mrs. Lawson, and their
children--it is all theirs," he sighed heavily, and deep emotion was
visible in every lineament of his thin and wrinkled face.

The poor woman raised her blood-shot eyes to his face, as if she
was puzzled by his words. She saw that he was suffering, and with
intuitive delicacy she desisted from pressing her wants, though her
need was great.