Mrs. Newton, whom she called her grandmother, was now a poor old
woman, confined to her bed by a long and trying illness, that had
nearly deprived her of the use of her limbs. But she had not been
always thus afflicted. Some years before, Mrs. Newton lived in a neat
cottage near the road-side, two or three miles from one of the great
sea-port towns of England. Her husband had good employment, and they
were both comfortable and happy.

Just eight years from this time, it happened that one warm summer's
day, Mrs. Newton went to look out from her cottage door down the
road, and she saw a young woman standing there, leaning against a
tree, and looking very faint and weak.

She was touched with pity and asked the poor traveller to walk into
her house and rest. The young woman thankfully consented, for she
said she was very ill; but she added, that her husband was coming
after her, having been obliged to turn back for a parcel that was
left behind at the house where they had halted some time before, and
therefore she would sit near the door and watch for him.

Before, however, the husband came, the poor woman was taken
dreadfully ill; and when he did arrive, good Mrs. Newton could not
bear to put the poor creature out of the house in such a state; she
became worse and worse. In short, that poor young woman was Fanny's
mother, and when little Fanny was born, that poor sick mother died,
and Fanny never saw a mother's smile.

The day after the young woman's death, kind Mrs. Newton came into
the room where her cold body was laid out on the bed; and there was