“She may have been furnished with money by some friend, who intending to remain in the city, had no use for Confederate Treasury notes,” Dr. Humphries remarked.

“That is very likely, and I trust it is so,” observed Harry, “However,” he continued, “I shall take steps on Monday next, to find out where Mrs. Wentworth is now residing.”

On Monday the following advertisement appeared in the evening papers: 

     INFORMATION WANTED.

Any one knowing where Mrs. Eva Wentworth and her two children reside, will be liberally rewarded, by addressing the undersigned at this place.  Mrs. Wentworth is a refugee from New Orleans, and the wife of a gallant soldier, now a prisoner of war.

     Jackson,——­1862.  H. SHACKLEFORD.

It was too late.  Extensively published as it was, Mrs. Wentworth never saw it.  Her hardships and trials had increased ten-fold; she was fast drifting before the storm, with breakers before, threatening to wreck and sink into the grave the wife and children of Alfred Wentworth.

CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.

MR. ELDER DEMANDS HIS RENT.—­NOTICE TO QUIT.

The money received by Mrs. Wentworth from Mr. Swartz, proved but a temporary relief for her children and herself.  A fatal day was fast arriving, and she knew not how to avert the impending storm.  By a great deal of labor and deprivation she had heretofore succeeded in paying the rent of the room she occupied, although Mr. Elder had twice advanced the price.  Now there was no hope of her being able to obtain a sufficient sum of money to meet the demand of that gentleman, who would call on her the following day in person, did she not call at his office and settle for at least one months rent in advance.  The month for which she had paid expired in three days, and she was apprehensive of being turned out, unless she could collect sufficient money to pay him.  She knew not where to find the means.  The room was stripped bare of furniture to supply the calls of nature; nothing but a mattress in one corner of the apartment, and a few cooking utensils remained.  She labored day and night, to procure work, but all her efforts were unavailing.  It appeared to her as if the Almighty had forsaken herself and children, and had left them to perish through want.

It cannot be that God would place his image on earth, and willingly leave them to perish from destitution.  Many have been known to die of starvation, and the tales of wretchedness and woe with which the public ear is often filled attest the fact.  Squalid forms and threadbare garments are seen, alas! too often in this civilised world, and the grave of the pauper is often opened to receive some unhappy mortal, whose life had been one scene of suffering and want.  Philanthropy shudders and Christianity believes it to be a punishment, administered by the hand of God; that the haggard cause of the starved creature, who has thus miserably died, once contained the spirit of a mortal undergoing the penalty of Him, who judges mankind on high, and expiating through his heart-rending bodily agony, crimes committed in by-gone days.