CHAPTER XXXIII.
WHICH PEOPLE VOID OF FEELING NEED NOT READ.
WHEN Mrs.Beauchamp entered the apartment of the poor sufferer, she started back with horror.

On a wretched bed, without hangings and but poorly supplied with covering, lay the emaciated figure of what still retained the semblance of a lovely woman, though sickness had so altered her features that Mrs.Beauchamp had not the least recollection of her person.

In one corner of the room stood a woman washing, and, shivering over a small fire, two healthy but half naked children; the infant was asleep beside its mother, and, on a chair by the bed side, stood a porrenger and wooden spoon, containing a little gruel, and a tea-cup with about two spoonfulls of wine in it.

Mrs.Beauchamp had never before beheld such a scene of poverty; she shuddered involuntarily, and exclaiming--"heaven preserve us!" leaned on the back of a chair ready to sink to the earth.

The doctor repented having so precipitately brought her into this affecting scene; but there was no time for apologies: Charlotte caught the sound of her voice, and starting almost out of bed, exclaimed--"Angel of peace and mercy, art thou come to deliver me?
Oh, I know you are, for whenever you was near me I felt eased of half my sorrows; but you don't know me, nor can I, with all the recollection I am mistress of, remember your name just now, but I know that benevolent countenance, and the softness of that voice which has so often comforted the wretched Charlotte." Mrs.Beauchamp had, during the time Charlotte was speaking, seated herself on the bed and taken one of her hands; she looked at her attentively, and at the name of Charlotte she perfectly conceived the whole shocking affair.