not touch health or life could cause such grief;
and she received the intelligence with
irritating composure. But when, that afternoon,
the little sick child was brought in, and the
grandmother—who after all loved it well—
began a fresh moan over her losses to its
unconscious ears—saying how she had planned
to consult this or that doctor, and to give it
this or that comfort or luxury in after years,
but that now all chance of this had passed
away—Alice's heart was touched, and she
drew near to Mrs. Wilson with unwonted
caresses, and, in a spirit not unlike to that of
Ruth, entreated, that come what would, they
might remain together. After much
discussion in succeeding days, it was arranged
that Mrs. Wilson should take a house in
Manchester, furnishing it partly with what
furniture she had, and providing the rest with
Alice's remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs.
Wilson was herself a Manchester woman, and
naturally longed to return to her native town;
Some connexions of her own at that time
required lodgings, for which they were willing to
pay pretty handsomely. Alice undertook the
active superintendence and superior work of
the household. Norah, willing faithful Norah,
offered to cook, scour, do anything in short,
so that she might but remain with them.

The plan succeeded. For some years their
first lodgers remained with them, and all
went smoothly, with the one sad exception
of the little girl's increasing deformity. How
that mother loved that child, is not for words
to tell!

Then came a break of misfortune. Their
lodgers left, and no one succeeded to them.
After some months they had to remove to a
smaller house; and Alice's tender conscience
was torn by the idea that she ought not to be
a burden to her mother-in-law, but ought to
go out and seek her own maintenance. And
leave her child! The thought came like the
sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her
heart.

Bye-and-bye, Mr. Openshaw came to lodge
with them. He had started in life as the
errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse;
had struggled up through all the grades of
employment in the place, fighting his way
through the hard striving Manchester life
with strong pushing energy of character.
Every spare moment of time had been sternly
given up to self-teaching. He was a capital
accountant, a good French and German
scholar, a keen, far-seeing, tradesman;
understanding markets, and the bearing of
events, both near and distant, on trade: and
yet, with such vivid attention to present
details, that I do not think he ever saw a
group of flowers in the fields without thinking
whether their colours would, or would not,
form harmonious contrasts in the coming
spring muslins and prints. He went to
debating societies, and threw himself with all
his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it
must be owned, every man a fool or a knave
who differed from him, and overthrowing his
opponents rather by the loud strength of his
language than the calm strength of his logic.
There was something of the Yankee in all
this. Indeed his theory ran parallel to the
famous Yankee motto " England flogs crea-
tion, and Manchester flogs England." Such
a man, as may be fancied, had had no time
for falling in love, or any such nonsense. At
the age when most young men go through
their courting and matrimony, he had not the
means of keeping a wife, and was far too
practical to think of having one. And now
that he was in easy circumstances, a rising
man, he considered women almost as
incumbrances to the world, with whom a man
had better have as little to do as possible.
His first impression of Alice was indistinct,
and he did not care enough about her to make
it distinct. "A pretty yea-nay kind of woman,"
would have been his description of her, if he
had been pushed into a corner. He was rather
afraid, in the beginning, that her quiet ways
arose from a listlessness and laziness of
character which would have been exceedingly
discordant to his active energetic nature.
But, when he found out the punctuality with
which his wishes were attended to, and her
work was done; when he was called in the
morning at the very stroke of the clock, his
shaving-water scalding hot, his fire bright,
his coffee made exactly as his peculiar fancy
dictated, (for he was a man who had his
theory about everything, based upon what he
knew of science, and often perfectly original)
—then he began to think: not that Alice
had any peculiar merit; but that he had got
into remarkably good lodgings: his restlessness
wore away, and he began to consider
himself as almost settled for life in them.

Mr. Openshaw had been too busy, all his
life, to be introspective. He did not know
that he had any tenderness in his nature;
and if he had become conscious of its abstract
existence, he would have considered it as a
manifestation of disease in some part of
his nature. But he was decoyed into pity
unawares; and pity led on to tenderness. That
little helpless child always carried about
by one of the three busy women of the house,
or else patiently threading coloured beads in
the chair from which, by no effort of its
own, could it ever move; the great grave
blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful,
expression, giving to the small delicate face a
look beyond its years; the soft plaintive voice
dropping out but few words, so unlike the
continual prattle of a child —caught Mr. Openshaw's
attention in spite of himself. One
day—he half scorned himself for doing so—
he cut short his dinner-hour to go in search
of some toy which should take the place of
those eternal beads. I forget what he bought;
but, when he gave the present (which he
took care to do in a short abrupt manner,
and when no one was by to see him) he was
almost thrilled by the flash of delight that