Hour after hour had he sat on his mother's knee, and with childish sympathy watched the tears that stole down her face, and then crept quietly away into some dark corner, and sobbed himself to sleep.

The hard realities of the world, with many of its worst privations--hunger and thirst, and cold and want--had all come home to him, from the first dawnings of reason; and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry laugh, and sparkling eyes were wanting.

'The father and mother looked on upon this, and upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared not breathe in words.

The healthy, strong-made man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of active exertion, was wasting beneath the close confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded prison.

The slight and delicate woman was sinking beneath the combined effects of bodily and mental illness.