I have been very wicked, papa, but I have suffered so much, that even those I have wronged most might forgive me.
Write to me at once, and say I may go home; I only want to go and die in peace.

I feel that I am dying now." She folded the letter with a weary sigh and a hand that shook like an old woman's, and rising, rang the bell.

The brisk young woman answered the summons at once with a smile on her face, and Mrs.Stanford's baby crowing in her arms.

They had been very kind to the poor young mother and the fatherless babe during this time of trial; but Mrs.Stanford was too ill and broken down to think about it, or feel grateful.
"Here, Jane," said Mrs.Stanford, holding out the letter, "give me the baby, and post this letter." Jane obeyed; and Rose, with the infant in her lap, sat staring gloomily at the red coals.
"Two weeks before it will reach them, two weeks more before an answer can arrive, and another two weeks before I can be with them.

Oh, dear me! dear me! how shall I drag out life during these interminable weeks.
If I could only die at once and end it all." Tears of unutterable wretchedness and loneliness and misery coursed down her pale, thin cheeks.