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When recollection returned, she was lying upon her own bed, in her own chamber, with her little boy crying by her side. Those who had, from humane feelings, conveyed her home, suffered the dictates of humanity to die in their bosoms ere her consciousness returned; and thus she was left, insensible, with no companion but her child.

In due course, Warburton was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, the first three years to be passed in solitary confinement. During the first term, no person was to be allowed to visit him. The knowledge of such a sentence was a dreadful blow to Mrs. Warburton. She parted from him in the court-room, on the day of his sentence, and for three long, weary years, her eyes saw him not again.

But a short time after the imprisonment of Warburton, another babe came into the world to share the misery of her whose happiness he had, in all his actions, so little regarded. When able again to go about, and count up her store, Mrs. Warburton found that she had little left her beyond a willing heart to labour for her children. It would have been some comfort to her if she had been permitted to visit her husband, but this the law forbade.

“Despair is never quite despair,” and once more in her life did Mrs. Warburton prove this. The certainty that there could be no further dependence upon her husband, led her to repose more confidently in her own resources, for a living, and they did not fail her. She had long since found out that our necessities cost much less than our superfluities, and therefore she did not sit down in idle despondency. Early in the morning and late at night was she found diligently employed, and though her compensation was not great, it was enough to supply her real wants.

For two years had she supported thus with her own hands herself and children. The oldest was now a smart little fellow of five years, and the youngest a fair-haired girl of some two summers. Thus far had she kept them around her; but sickness at last came. Nature could not always sustain the heavy demands made upon her, and at last sunk under them.

There are many more cases of extreme suffering in this country than persons are generally willing to believe. These extreme cases are among those whose peculiar feelings will not allow of their making known their real condition. They are such as were once members of some social circle, far removed indeed from the apparent chances of poverty. Their shrinking pride, their yearning desire for independence clings closer and closer to them, and operates more and more powerfully, as they sink lower and lower, from uncontrollable causes, into the vale of want and destitution. Beggars with no feelings, and no claims beyond those of idleness and intemperance, thrust themselves forward, and consume the bread of charity, that should go to nourish the widow and the orphan, who suffer daily and nightly, rather than ask for aid.

One to whom the idea of eating the bread of charity had ever been a painful and revolting one, was Mrs. Warburton. So long as she was able, she had earned with untiring industry, the food that nourished her children. But close confinement, insufficient nourishment, labour beyond her strength, and above all, a wounded spirit, at last completed the undermining work, which threw down the tottering and feeble health that had long kept her at her duties.

It was mid-winter when she was severely attacked by a bilious-pleurisy. For some weeks she had drooped about, hardly able to perform half her wonted labour–most of that time suffering from a hard cough and distressing pain in the side, which was augmented almost to agony while bending steadily, and for hours over her work. Taking, as it did, all that she could earn to keep herself and children in comfort during the winter, she had nothing laid up for a time of more pressing need; and, as for the last few weeks, she had earned so little as to have barely enough for necessaries, when helplessness came, she was in utter destitution, Her wood was just out, except a few hard, knotted logs; her flour was out, and her money gone. When she could no longer sit up, she sent her little boy for a physician, who bled her, and left her some powerful medicines. The first gave temporary relief, and the latter reduced her to a state of great bodily and mental weakness. He did not call in again until the second day, when he found the children both in bed with their mother, who was suffering greatly from a return of the pain in her side. The room was chilly, for there was no fire, and it was intensely cold without, and the ground covered with a deep snow. He again bled her, which produced immediate relief, and learning that she had no wood, called in at the next door, where lived a wealthy family, and stated the condition of their poor neighbour A child of six years old stood by his mother while the physician was speaking. The lady seemed much affected when told of the sufferings of the, poor woman, politely thanked the physician for making her acquainted with the fact, and promised immediate attention.