charmingly pretty young creature, the
portionless daughter of a country curate. His
scientific reputation had not been productive
of much pecuniary gain, and he was not without
money-troubles. He felt his brother's great
affliction very sorely; the more so that he
himself was powerless to give him any substantial
help. John was, of course, obliged to resign
his situation at the chemical works. His
employers were kind in words, and, for a time,
in deeds. They sent him to London at their
own expense to consult a famous oculist, and
they continued to pay his salary for some time
after he had ceased to earn it. But at last all
that came to an end, and it seemed as though
absolute beggary stared him and his family in
the face.

Mary Earnshaw then rose up with a brave
undaunted heart, to help her husband and her
children.

"She was determined," she said, "to return
to her old profession."

No opposition would have availed to dissuade
her from this step, and, indeed, what better
prospect had the helpless family? So Mary
Earnshaw resumed her maiden name—out of
deference to the highly sensitive feelings of her
husband's family in the Orkney Islands and
elsewhere—and, calling herself Mrs. Walton,
returned to the stage.

For years her struggle was a very hard one;
but, as she said, God was good to her, and she
preserved her health and strength through all
the fatigues and vicissitudes of a very laborious
life.

By-and-by her children began to contribute
something to the weekly earnings. Her eldest
girl—about eight years older than Mabel—
adopted her mother's calling, and they generally
succeeded in getting an engagement together in
the same theatre. When this could not be
managed, Polly's salary had to be relinquished;
for neither father nor mother could bear the
thought of parting with their child. And indeed
"let us keep together" was the device of the
family, and the object of their constant endeavours.
The only son, Polly's junior by a year
or two, showed some ability as an artist,
and was able to turn his talent to account
and to contribute to the weekly income by
scene-painting. In short, the worst times of
poverty and struggle were over for Mrs. Walton
(as she was now always called) before
the death of Mabel's father. This took place
when Mabel was nearly six years old, and she
and her mother were left totally unprovided
for.

The reader knows that Mrs. Earnshaw became
tho humble companion and dependent of an old
lady residing at the Welsh watering-place where
she met her second husband. In this position
her child was a burden on her, and the difficulties
of placing her in any suitable home, within
reach of the widow's slender means, were almost
insuperable.

But Mary Walton, mindful of her old affection
for Philip, held out her honest helpful hand
to her widowed sister-in-law, and took the little
fatherless Mabel to her own home.

"What keeps five of us will keep six," said
the little woman to her husband, cheerfully:
"and I do believe your brother would have done
as much for any of our children."

With her aunt's family, therefore, Mabel
continued to live, up to the time of her mother's
second marriage. She went with them whithersoever
the vicissitudes or necessities of their
profession carried them. And whatever else she
learnt in her auut's household, this lesson, at
least, was taught her by hourly example:
that family affection and confidence, unselfish
care for others, and cheerful industry, can rob
poverty of its grimness, and cast a ray of bright
enchantment over the most prosaic details of a
hard and precarious life. When Mrs. Earnshaw
accepted Benjamin Saxelby, she was obliged to
confide to him, with much nervous terror and
many tears (for she knew his opinions and
modes of thought well enough to dread the
disclosure), what manner of people the relatives
were, with whom her little girl had been and was
living. Mr. Saxelby was duly and conscientiously
shocked by the confession.

"Of course, my dear," he said, "we must
have your daughter—our daughter—away at
once. And if it be possible to make this person
whom she is with, and who seems to have
behaved very kindly to the child, any pecuniary
remuneration, I will do what I can. But it must
be a sine qua non that Mabel shall hold no
further communication with these people. I
feel it to be my imperative duty to insist upon
this."

So Mabel was taken away from the warm-
hearted family who had learned to love her very
dearly, and was forbidden to speak of them
more.

Her aunt, unselfish as ever, encouraged
Mabel in all good feeling towards Mr. Saxelby,
telling her that it was a good thing for her
mother and herself to find an honest kind
protector who would do his duty by them.
She uttered no word of complaint to the child
of the harsh cold letter in which money-payment
was offered her in exchange for her
motherly care and affection, and in which she
was civilly informed that, according to Mr.
Saxelby's most conscientious judgment, she and
her family had entered very far on the broad
way that Ieadeth to destruction. Nevertheless,
she shed some of the bitterest tears over that
letter that she had shed for years.

"I think," she said to her husband, whose
indignation knew no bounds, and who was for
sending an angry and cutting reply: "I think
Mrs. Philip might have spared me this. But
perhaps Mrs. Philip cannot help it. She never
was famous for having a will of her own; and,
after all, the man is to be her husband, and I
suppose he thinks he is doing right. But,
John dear, isn't it very strange that he should
think so?"

During a year or two after Mabel's removal
from her aunt and uncle, letters arrived for her