Some coarse shirts are lying upon the rude table--it is the same old
song which Hood made immortal:--
"Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread
A shroud as well as a shirt."
"Do not fear madam, I am no bailiff. I have come to bring you to
your husband," said the old gentleman in trembling accents. "Oh
spare me, dear sir! I never wish to see his face again! His brutal
treatment has left me as you now see--this wretched hole and these
dry morsels! Oh God! did I ever think this would be my sad fate!"
Who could recognize in this wretched-looking creature any semblance
to the peerless proud beauty--Evelyn Verne.
Ah, surely the proud soul must have passed through the waters of
much tribulation--surely she is humbled in the very dust.
"I cannot go, sir. Oh no, I cannot go!" exclaimed the woman in
piteous accents, covering her face as if to shut out the sight of
human sympathy.
"Listen to me, madam," said the old gentleman in his soft touching
way, and then the humiliated woman heard a tale of woe that entered
deeply into her soul.
What a change those words had wrought--such a change as mortal can
scarcely dream of!
"I will go with you, sir," said Evelyn with tears streaming, down
her cheeks.
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