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“I do not,” replied Fanny, mournfully.

“Well then, I do, and I’ll give you a hint or two. It’s a world, child, that’s looking out pretty sharp for number one; where each shows their fairest side, and looks all round their fellow creturs —where them that have the upper hand—you understand—them what employs others—thinks they have a right to require that they shall be honest and true and faithful, and so on to the end of the chapter of what they call good character; and not only that they be so, but that they have been so all their lives. The man that holds the purse may snap his fingers, and be and do what he likes. Now, there can’t be friendship in this trade, so what are the weak party to do but to make fight the best way they can? But I see you don’t altogether take my idees,” he continued, perceiving Fanny was but half attentive, and replacing his spectacles, which he had taken off in beginning his lecture on the social system; “you’ll see my meaning in the application. Now, ‘I’ve asked no questions, and you’ve told no lies,’ as the saying is, but I know pretty much what’s come and gone—you see I understand all sorts of advertisements—by your beauty, by your cast-down eyes, with the tears standing on the eaves—by the lips that, though too pretty for any thing but smiles, look as if they would never smile again; by the—”

“Oh, please, sir, give me the papers and let me go.”

“Wait—I have not come to it yet—to the pith. I feel like a father to you, child—I do. Now, my advice is, hold up your head; you’ve as much right, and more, I can tell you, than many a mistress of a fine house. Look straight forward, speak cheery, and say you’re a widow.”

Fanny looked up, with a glance of conscious integrity; and he added, w
ith a slight stammer—

“Why should you not say so? You are left, and that is the main part of being a widow—left to provide for yourself and your young one, and that’s the distressing part of being one. Every body pities the widow and orphan. And I should like to have any body tell me which is most complete a widow, a woman whose husband is dead, or you?—which the completest orphan, a child whose father lies under ground, or yours?”

Fanny stretched out her hand for the references, and took them in silence; but when she reached the door, she turned, and said, with a voice so sweet and penetrating that it was oil to the wounded vanity of the man, “I thank you, sir, for wishing to help us; but baby,” she added, mentally, straining her little burden to her bosom, “we will be true—we will keep our vow to God—won’t we? He is merciful; Jesus was merciful, even to that poor woman that was brought before him by cruel men; and if nobody will take us in on earth, God may take us to Himself—and I think He will soon.”

She walked on slowly and perseveringly, turning many streets, till she reached the first address to which she had been referred. There, she was received and dismissed as she had been on the previous day, and she went to look for the next; but she soon began to feel sensations she had never felt before, a pain and giddiness in the head, and a general tremulousness. She dragged on a little way, and then sat down. Gradually her mind became confused, and she determined to turn back at once, and make the best of her way to Mrs. O’Roorke, but to her dismay, she could not remember the name of the street where she lived nor that of the intelligence-office.”Oh, I am going mad,” she thought, “and they will take my baby from me!” and making an effort to compose herself, she sat down on a door-step, and, to test her mind, she counted the panes in the windows opposite.”All is right yet,” she thought, as she went steadily on and finished her task; “but why cannot I remember the name of that street? Do you know,” she asked timidly of a man who was passing, and who looked like one of those persons who know every thing of the sort,—”do you know any street beginning with Van?”