Stephen, sat in a rocking-chair, and swung to and fro as she knitted away
fast and diligently at a thick grey stocking. In the corner nearest to
the fireplace there stood a pallet-bed, hardly raised above the earthen
floor, to which Stephen hastened immediately, with an anxious look at the
thin, white face of his father lying upon the pillow. Beside the sick man
there lay a little child fast asleep, with her hand clasping one of her
father's fingers; and though James Fern was shaking and trembling with a
violent fit of coughing from the sudden gust of smoke, he took care not
to loose the hold of those tiny fingers.

'Poor little Nan!' he whispered to Stephen, as soon as he could speak.
'I've been thinking all day of her and thee, lad, till I'm nigh
heart-broken.'

'Do you feel worse, father?' asked Stephen anxiously.

'I'm drawing nearer the end,' answered James Fern,--'nearer the end every
hour; and I don't know for certain what the end will be. I'm repenting;
but I can't undo the mischief I've done; I must leave that behind me.
If I'd been anything like a decent father, I should have left you
comfortable, instead of poor beggars. And what is to become of my poor
lass here? See how fast she clips my hand, as if she was afeared I was
going to leave her! Oh, Stephen, my lad, what will you all do?'

'Father,' said Stephen, in a quiet and firm voice, 'I'm getting six
shillings a week wages, and we can live on very little. We haven't got
any rent to pay, and only ourselves and grandfather to keep, and Martha
is as good as a woman grown. We'll manage, father, and take care of
little Nan.'