sole aim, apparently, was the speedy completion of the shirt at which she incessantly wrought.

The boy was a small copy of his mother, with the same fair hair and blue eyes but his face had more colour, his figure was more rounded, and he was clothed with a care which shewed the forethought and the love of a mother even in the direst poverty.

After some twenty minutes of silence, broken only by the clicking of the needle and the low chatter of the child, signs of exhaustion began to show themselves in the worker. Before long, big, hot tears fell on the grey flannel, and she opened her mouth with an hysterical gasp. Slowly and more slowly did the seamstress ply her needle, until at last, with a strangled sob, she flung back her head. "Oh, Heavens!" was her moan, and it seemed to be wrung from the very depths of her suffering heart. The child, with a nervous cry, looked up, trembling violently.

"What is it mother? Is father coming?"

"No, thank Heaven!" said the mother, fiercely. "Do you want him?"

So white did the boy's face become that his eyes shewed black as pitch balls. The question seemed to strike him like a blow, and he hurled himself forward to bury his head in the woman's lap. "Don't--don't let him come!" he sobbed, with unrestrained passion.

"Why do you speak of him, then?" cried the mother, angrily, just as she might have addressed a person of her own age. "Never mention your father, Gilbert. He has gone out of your life--out of mine. He is dead to you--and to me."

"I am glad," sobbed the boy, shaking with nervous excitement. "Are you sure, quite sure, mother, he will never come back again?"

"Who is sure of anything?" muttered the woman, gloomily. "He is out of prison now; at any time he may track us down. But he shall not I get you, my boy," and she strained the child to her breast. "I would kill him first!"

"I would kill him, too--kill him, too!" panted Gilbert, brokenly. "Oh, mother, mother! I hate him! I hate him!" and he burst into tears.

"Hush, hush, my baby!" soothed the mother. "Never think of him. He will not get you. No, no."

But the boy continued to sob convulsively, and it required all her arts to pacify him. She knew from experience what the end of this outbreak would be if it continued beyond a point. The lad 

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