some tea and toast and set out the little things she had brought, and Benjamin straightened the untidy room; and then she returned and gently roused him from his grief, and made him come down and take the refreshment of which he stood in so much need.

Then came the tale he had to tell of his own career during those months of absence; and his way of telling it proved to his friends that he had learned the lesson which was to be his joy throughout eternity.

Mrs. Field promised to come as early as possible in the morning, and the kind pair took their leave about midnight. Benjamin turned back for a moment.

"Matthew," he whispered," she will need all your patience when she comes to herself. I know what it is. I may well ask you to bear pitifully with her yet awhile, for it was that, under God's mercy, that saved me."

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May God help me to do right," said Matthew, wringing his friend's hand gratefully. "Only, both of you pray for us."

Then he saw that the children slept, and a painful feeling oppressed him as he gazed at his little girl by the light shaded with his hand. Her face was so very thin and white, and her little fingers looked so bony, and her lips so hot and parched. But she slept sweetly, and that was some comfort. His boy looked much older, as if care had touched the young brow with a heavy hand, and his curly hair was long and unkept, and neglect seemed written too plainly on everything around them, notwithstanding the effort the dear little ones had made.

Soon, however, his thoughts were called in another direction. Mrs. Hill was trying to rouse herself, and sank back again with a groan. Then she tore away the soft lint which Ellen had laid upon her wounded face, and called out for a doctor, for drink, for anything that would take the burning out of her brain.

Matthew, after endeavouring to soothe her, and judging that she did not know who it was that bent tenderly over her, decided to go at once and find a doctor, for she might now be suffering from bodily injury as well as from the effects of what she had drunk.

The doctor he went to was not at home; he had stayed at the house of a patient who was supposed to be dying, and thither Matthew followed him.

CHAPTER XXII.

SIN AND PUNISHMENT.

HEN Matthew returned with the doctor, they found Mrs. Hill talking wildly, sometimes screaming, sometimes fighting off some imaginary assailant, the frightened children awake, little Daisy sobbing on her pillow.

The doctor looked steadily at the wife by the light of the candle that Matthew brought to him, while she went on with her mutterings, trying to get up, and falling back in a rage at her helplessness.

"Father, father!" called the boy from his bed, where he was sitting up shivering with fear, "don't you think poor baby's medicine would make her quiet? It always stopped baby screaming and let her go to sleep, oh, for so long."

"Ha! my little man, where is it?" said the doctor.

"In the cupboard downstairs, please; at least, it used to be."

Matthew went to look for it.

"My boy, had baby any of it the night she died?" asked the doctor, quietly, coming to Josy's bedside.

"Oh yes, sir, lots," said the boy.

Matthew brought two or three small bottles from amongst a good many large ones, and the doctor was soon satisfied.

"No, we shan't give her any of that. But now, Mr. Hill, you must remove the children to another room as soon as it can be done; this may be a long business, and you must get some one as nurse, for you cannot watch night and day."

"What is it, do you think, sir?" asked Matthew, anxiously. "I shall judge better to-morrow," said the doctor.

"Is it from the fall that she rambles so?" he asked again. "I'm afraid not, but I shall tell better in a few hours more. Who did you say knocked her down?"

"That woman Swinden," replied Hill.

"Ah, she was not likely to fare better in such company, but I hope you'll be able to right things a little now you've come home. I will be here, please God, in good time in the morning."

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Sir," said Matthew, following him to the door, "you attended my little babe ?"

'No, no, I did not see it till too late," said he, hastily. "But," thought he, as he walked along, "if I had had any idea of this. It's murder, murder and nothing short of it. Died in a fit, indeed! If it had been Mrs. Swinden's child I should have known better, and detected the lie; but this woman's children used to be so well cared for, I never thought of questioning what she said at the time. But she seems to have taken to drinking, and what won't a drunken woman do!"

L

Matthew obeyed the directions he had received, and sat bathing the hot brow, until the excited patient became a little calmer, and as, fortunately for him, she was unable to rise, he set about such little preparations as he could make for removing the children into another room. He felt no inclination to sleep, and it was a very worn and haggard face that Benjamin and his Ellen found ready to receive them the next morning. How kind, how undeservedly kind of his forbearing Lord to provide such friends in this great need, poor Matthew deeply felt.

Mrs. Hill's temporary calmness broke into fresh exhibitions of frenzy with the daylight, and it required actual force to keep her from rolling off the bed. Whether she knew whose firm hand restrained her from injuring herself, or into whose ear she poured her anger and fury, no one could tell. But her mind seemed to rove from one subject to another with startling rapidity. One moment she vowed revenge on "that woman;" the next, she loudly declared that her baby died in a fit, and the next that Matthew was an unnatural brute, and she hoped he would never come back, and so on.

Next morning, when the doctor had prescribed for Jane, he went to look at the little girl in the bed, whither her father had carried her. Josy, nicely washed, hair combed, and a clean pinafore from her own children's store, put on by Mrs. Field to hide his dirty frock and trousers, trotted about, doing as he was told, and watching his father's countenance with great

contentment.

Matthew gazed approvingly upon him now and then, and the child was happy. But his pet flower, his sweet Daisy, troubled him.

"She's so light, sir," he said; "when I lifted her I could scarcely think I was holding a child of her age."

"She is very thin and weak, certainly. I wish I had seen her again after the arm got well, but I understood she was going on comfortably."

"She never eats anything but what Mrs. Field brings and coaxes her to," said the little boy.

"Hum; well, perhaps father will manage her now," said the doctor, observing the smile of perfect delight which played over the wan little face as Daisy clasped her small fingers round her father's large ones, and looked up in his anxious face.

Before many more hours were over, Mrs. Hill was so violent that the doctor ventured to suggest to Mrs. Field the propriety of removing her to the lunatic's wing of the neighbouring hospital, where he thought she could be managed with less risk to herself and others.

But Ellen could not hint it to Matthew, and when the doctor at last did so himself, he started with alarm.

"Is

it come to that?" said he, greatly distressed. "Is she really mad?"

"For the present," replied the sympathising doctor; "and, as she does not know anything about it, she will not suffer anything until she comes to herself, and then you can bring her home immediately."

Matthew pondered drearily for a little.

"No, sir," at last he said, firmly. "Order anything or any person here that you think right for her to have, but I can't send her there, indeed I cannot."

"It will cost you a good deal to have such attention as sle needs," suggested the doctor.

"Never mind, sir, I can get work; I will pay it all, but I can't send my wife there. Please not to name it again."

At last, excitement was followed by prostration: sense