She lay, long weeks, battling for life, in her little back parlour, at Islington, tended night and day by her kind, good husband.
But did she not often (you will say) urge him, earnestly as the dying ask, to seek out her father or brother (she had not been told of his conviction), and to let them know this need?
Why, then, did he so often put her off with faint excuses, and calm her with coming hopes, and do any thing, say any thing, suffer any thing, rather than execute the fervent wish of the affectionate Maria?
It is easily understood.

With, and notwithstanding, all the high sentiments, strong sense, and warm feelings of Henry Clements, he was too proud to seek any succour of the Dillaways.

Sooner than give that hard old man, or, beforetime, that keen malicious young one, any occasion to triumph over his necessitous condition, he himself would starve: ay, and trust to Heaven his darling wife and child; but not trust these to them.

Never, never--if the heart-divorcing work-house were their doom--should that father or that brother hear from him a word of supplication, or one murmur of complaint.

Nay; he took pains to hinder their knowledge of this trouble: all the world, rather than those two men.