my heart failed me but the rival discord of tlie shop prevented my return while i hesitated the parlour door was suddenly thrown open by one of the little hoping to escape his share in the general and the scene within was thus revealed to my wondering vision it was ten years since i had seen my friend � ten married years nine children three attacks of four of scarlet fever and one had done to make mrs exceedingly unlike the fair girl i had once known her but in a dark street in london poverty and had done more oh who can say they do not wish for money long as young helpless girls will marry before they have had much more experience than the they have just laid aside � so long as men who have not wherewith to clothe and feed themselves will link their hard fate with those who are not used to hardship at first all may go smoothly new furniture looks well and kind pitying relations make presents that show upon the table and the mantle piece they are both young and confiding and in the young is more potent while it lasts than the old will believe but even love may be drawn upon too often for draughts too large and and the poor man s banker make r the pains op pleasing the same complaint the first child is welcomed by tlie nurse and the young mother and sometimes the father is of his pressing cares by its happy smiles a second find a welcome because two are little more trouble than one and a third because tliey hope it will be the last but tliey have no nursery and it is very difficult to find a welcome for the fourth the wife loses her health and her spirits her cheek grows hollow her eye dim and she is evidently sinking under her cares but an just settled near them and they cannot afford to hire more help the doctor is called in he looks with compassion on that gentle drooping form and quiet with t on the sofa alas there is no sofa and if there were how should that � how should she find rest whose ears are stunned with perpetual discord who is constantly called upon to the anger of tlie turbulent to soothe the to up the bruised and to forget herself perchance the husband loves her still all changed as she is and thinks kindly of her for he can do no more but the hardship of her lot is not much by his thoughts oh who does not wish for money when they see the children of such people wanting that education which parents have enjoyed and consequently falling into a lower grade of society without either the dignity of their father or the refinement of their mother strangers even to the decency of manners and conduct without which we ought not to be contented with such a family as this i was now come to eat my bread i could not expect a welcome but i found one for the poor are not the last to fulfil the duties of hospitality nor the worn and the harassed the most unwilling to show that they can exert themselves yet farther for a friend mrs was on her knees in the midst of her noisy group when i entered she started up at the sight of a stranger and it was some time before she discovered by the flickering light of the fire who that stranger was she was herself so changed that but for a peculiar smile which played for a moment on her lips and which had once been familiar to her face i should scarcely have known her i told her i was come to be her she thought i was nor was it until i had convinced her of my meaning by repeated assurances that she acknowledged by a silent tear how sorry she was to be unable to offer me a home on any other terms you are weary she said � i will just put the children to bed and then you shall have tea i asked if in the time i might go up stairs to my own room poor mrs looked confounded she had forgot while offering me a welcome that on the birth of her last child she had resigned the privilege of keeping what is called a spare room and that it was impossible any apartment under her roof should be exclusively my own she might have recollected too if this had not been enough that long before this fearful upon comfort she had laid aside all pretensions to neatness and regularity and that even in what was now called the best instead of the spare room every drawer was stuffed and every shelf crowded with different articles of clothing concealed from the of the small who ranged at large and with their busy fingers wherever they were not prevented by lock and bolt stay one moment said my friend and i was m the dark while she ran upstairs half the uttle tribe escaped on the departure of their mother of the remaining half i could only make friends with one while the others shrieked and rolled about the floor until they woke the baby in the cradle and i had more than i could well manage to still its cries mrs now called t me from be top of the stairs and i ascended with the cheering hope of finding quiet at last but to relate a low wide bed made to contain three at least stood close beside the pictures of private life one prepared for me and the poor mother told me with many apologies and much embarrassment that she could not offer me any other room nor find room for her children elsewhere � don t mention it said i it is 