“Is it not too heavy for you[r] might?” said Paul Clifford from whose grocery Belle had bought her supplies.

“Can I not send them home for you?”

“No I don’t want them sent home.  They are for a poor woman and her suffering children, who live about a square from here in Lear’s Court.”  Paul stood thoughtfully a moment before handing her the basket, and said—­“That court has a very bad reputation; had I not better accompany you?  I hope you will not consider my offer as an intrusion, but I do not think it is safe for you to venture there alone.”

“If you think it is not safe I will accept of your company; but I never thought of danger for myself in the presence of that fainting woman and her hungry children.  Do you know her?  Her name is Mrs. Gough.”  “I think I do.  If it is the person I mean, I remember her when she was as lighthearted and happy a girl as I ever saw, but she married against her parents’ consent, a worthless fellow named Joe Gough, and in a short time she disappeared from the village and I suppose she has come home, broken in health and broken in spirit.”

“And I am afraid she has come home to die.  Are her parents still alive?”

“Yes, but her father never forgave her.  Her mother I believe would take her to her heart as readily as she ever did, but her husband has an iron will and she has got to submit to him.”

“Where do they live?”

“At No 200 Rouen St. but here we are at the door.”  Paul carried the basket up stairs, and sat down quietly, while Belle prepared some refreshing tea and toast for the feeble mother; and some bread and milk for the hungry children.

“What shall I do?” said Belle looking tenderly upon the wan face, “I hate to leave her alone and yet I confess I do not prefer spending the night here.”

“Of course not,” said Paul looking thoughtfully into the flickering fire of the grate.

“Oh!  I have it now; I know a very respectable woman who occasionally cleans out my store.  Just wait a few moments, and I think I can find her,” said Paul Clifford turning to the door.  In a short time he returned bringing with him a pleasant looking woman whose face in spite of the poverty of her dress had a look of genuine refinement which comes not so much from mingling with people of culture as from the culture of her own moral and spiritual nature.  She had learned to “look up and not to look down.”  To lend a helping hand wherever she felt it was needed.  Her life was spent in humble usefulness.  She was poor in this world’s goods, but rich in faith and good works.  No poor person who asked her for bread ever went away empty.  Sometimes people would say, “I wouldn’t give him a mouthful; he is not worthy,” and then she would say in the tenderest and sweetest manner: 

“Suppose our heavenly Father only gave to us because we are worthy; what would any of us have?” I know she once said of a miserable sot with whom she shared her scanty food, that he is a wretched creature, but I wanted to get at his heart, and the best way to it was through his stomach.  I never like to preach religion to hungry people.  There is something very beautiful about the charity of the poor, they give not as the rich of their abundance, but of their limited earnings, gifts which when given in a right spirit bring a blessing with them.