The crying boy was barefooted, and the young creature who endeavored to console him had thin and worn slippers on her tender feet, and her snowy skin was in more than one place visible through the rents of her frock.

The old man looked at them, from time to time; and there might have been observed, notwithstanding the sweetness and placidity of his smile, a secret expression of inward agony--the physical and natural feelings of the parent and the man mingling, or rather struggling, with the great principle of dependence on God, without which he must at once have sunk down prostrate and hopeless.
"When," said the boy, "will Edward come from the post-office?
Is there nothing at all in the house, mamma, that I could eat ?" "Hush! Frank," said his sister; "where's your generosity and your patience?
Did we not all promise to think of papa and mamma before ourselves--yes, and of our poor Maria, too, who is so ill ?" "That is true," replied the boy, "but when I promised that, I wasn't so hungry as I am now.

But, still, if I had anything to eat, I would give the best part of it to papa or mamma, or Maria, if she could eat it--that is, after I had taken one mouthful for myself.

Oh will Ned never come from the post-office ?" "Mamma," said the sick girl, looking up into her mother's eyes, "I am sustained by one hope, and that is, that I will soon cease to be a burthen upon dear papa--my heartbroken papa and you.

I am anxious to pass away to that blessed place where all tears shall be wiped from my eyes;" and as she spoke she raised herself a little, and quietly wiped one or two from them; and, she proceeded, "where the weary will be at rest.