Immediately behind this individual, came a pale, poverty-stricken woman,
whose forlorn aspect contrasted strongly with his plump and comfortable
physiognomy. She was dressed in a tattered black stuff gown, discoloured
by various stains, and intended, it would seem, from the remnants of
rusty crape with which it was here and there tricked out, to represent
the garb of widowhood, and held in her arms a sleeping infant, swathed
in the folds of a linsey-woolsey shawl.

Notwithstanding her emaciation, her features still retained something
of a pleasing expression, and might have been termed beautiful, had it
not been for that repulsive freshness of lip denoting the habitual
dram-drinker; a freshness in her case rendered the more shocking from
the almost livid hue of the rest of her complexion. She could not be
more than twenty; and though want and other suffering had done the work
of time, had wasted her frame, and robbed her cheek of its bloom and
roundness, they had not extinguished the lustre of her eyes, nor thinned
her raven hair. Checking an ominous cough, that, ever and anon,
convulsed her lungs, the poor woman addressed a few parting words to her
companion, who lingered at the doorway as if he had something on his
mind, which he did not very well know how to communicate.

"Well, good night, Mr. Wood," said she, in the deep, hoarse accents of
consumption; "and may God Almighty bless and reward you for your
kindness! You were always the best of masters to my poor husband; and
now you've proved the best of friends to his widow and orphan boy."

"Poh! poh! say no more about it," rejoined the man hastily. "I've done
no more than my duty, Mrs. Sheppard, and neither deserve nor desire your
thanks. 'Whoso giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord;' that's my
comfort. And such slight relief as I can afford should have been offered