Forgive me, dear father and mother, and be good to my precious darling." For minutes after he had reached the end of the letter, poor Thomas Dawson sat with tears running fast over his weather-worn cheeks.
"My little maid," he kept saying to himself, with a sob in his breath, "my Lizzie starving! starving! and me with a plenty and to spare!" It was his own child he was thinking of, his own Lizzie, the little maiden who had been the apple of his eye, the joy and pride of his life--and this was what she had come to! The kettle sang and boiled on the hob, the fire burnt clear, but the loaf lay on the table uncut, and still the old man sat staring before him at the letter spread on the table, heeding nothing until a thought came which roused him completely--though only to a deeper sense of trouble.

"However am I going to break the news to mother," he groaned.

"Oh, my! but it'll upset her something cruel--and that lazy, good-for-nothing fellow that she could never abide, have brought it all upon us!" His thoughts and his wonderings, though, were brought to a sudden stop by the touch of a hand on his shoulder.

"Why, Thomas, you were so quiet I thought you must be asleep, or ill, or something, and I was so worried I had to get up at last and come down and see." Then, as her husband turned to her, and she caught sight of his face, she grew really alarmed.

"What is it?
What has happened?
There is trouble, I can see it.