Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor.

This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion--remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relieved--for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted.

During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape.

One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode.

She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes.