"And you, Jamie?" asked Walter, struck by the sharpened features of
the boy, and the hungry look which for a moment glistened in his
eye.

"I don't need much, you know, for I don't work like Bess; but yet
she gives me all. Oh, how can I bear to see her working so for me,
and I lying idle here!"

As he spoke, Jamie clasped his hands before his face, and through
his slender fingers streamed such tears as children seldom shed.

It was so rare a thing for him to weep that it filled Walter with
dismay and a keener sense of his own powerlessness. Ho could bear
any privation for himself alone, but he could not see them suffer.
He had nothing to offer them; for though there was seeming wealth in
store for him, he was now miserably poor. He stood a moment, looking
from brother to sister, both so dear to him, and both so plainly
showing how hard a struggle life had been to them.

With a bitter exclamation, the young man turned away and went out
into the night, muttering to himself,--

"They shall not suffer; I will beg or steal first."

And with some vague purpose stirring within him, he went swiftly on
until he reached a great thoroughfare, nearly deserted now, but
echoing occasionally to a quick step as some one hurried home to his
warm fireside.

"A little money, sir, for a sick child and a starving woman;" and