_human_. But I am not going to thank you as I ought to do, but to ask of
you a last and exceeding favour. Protect my child till he grows up. You
have often said you loved him,--you are childless yourself,--and a morsel
of bread and a shelter for the night, which is all I ask of you to give
him, will not impoverish more legitimate claimants."

Poor Mrs. Margery, fairly sobbing, vowed she would be a mother to the
child, and that she would endeavour to rear him honestly; though a
public-house was not, she confessed, the best place for good examples.

"Take him," cried the mother, hoarsely, as her voice, failing her
strength, rattled indistinctly, and almost died within her. "Take him,
rear him as you will, as you can; any example, any roof, better than--"
Here the words were inaudible. "And oh, may it be a curse and a-- Give
me the medicine; I am dying."

The hostess, alarmed, hastened to comply; but before she returned to the
bedside, the sufferer was insensible,--nor did she again recover speech
or motion. A low and rare moan only testified continued life, and within
two hours that ceased, and the spirit was gone. At that time our good
hostess was herself beyond the things of this outer world, having
supported her spirits during the vigils of the night with so many little
liquid stimulants that they finally sank into that torpor which generally
succeeds excitement. Taking, perhaps, advantage of the opportunity which
the insensibility of the hostess afforded him, Dummie, by the expiring
ray of the candle that burned in the death-chamber, hastily opened a huge
box (which was generally concealed under the bed, and contained the
wardrobe of the deceased), and turned with irreverent hand over the
linens and the silks, until quite at the bottom of the trunk he
discovered some packets of letters; these he seized, and buried in the