John Cole had been living out perhaps a year.  He had not grown much in this period; his frame had always been slight, and his sunken cheeks and wasted limbs spoke of the hard usage and suffering of his present situation.  The family had many delicacies for themselves, but the work boy they knew never was used to such things, and they were indifferent, as to what his fare chanced to be.  He generally managed to satisfy the cravings of hunger on the coarse food given him, but that was all.  About this time it happened that the farmer was digging a ditch, and as he was afraid winter would set in before it was completed, Johnny and himself were at work upon it early and late, notwithstanding the wind whistled, and it was so cold they could hardly handle the tools.  While thus employed, it chanced that they got wet to the skin with a drizzling rain, and on returning to the house the farmer changed his clothes, drank some hot mulled cider, and spent the remainder of the evening in his high-backed chair before a comfortable fire; while the boy was sent to grease a wagon in an open shed, and at night crept to his straw pallet, shaking as though in an ague fit.  The next morning he was in a high fever, and with many a “wonder of what had got into him,” but without one word of sympathy, or any other manifestation of good-will, he was sent home to his mother.  Late in the evening of the same day a compassionate physician was surprised to see a woman enter his office; her garments wet and travel-stained, and, with streaming eyes, she besought him to come and see her son.

“My Johnny, my Johnny, sir!” she cried, “he has been raving wild all day, and we are afraid he will die.”

Mistaking the cause of the good man’s hesitation, she added, with a fresh burst of grief, “Oh!  I will work my fingers to the bone to pay you, sir, if you will only come.  We live in the Gap.”

A few inquiries were all that was necessary to learn the state of the case.  The benevolent doctor took the woman in his vehicle, and proceeded, over a mountainous road of six miles, to see his patient.  But vain was the help of man!  Johnny continued delirious; it was work, work, always at work; and pitiful was it to hear his complaints of being cold and tired, while his heart-broken parent hung over him, and denied herself the necessaries of life to minister to his wants.  After being ill about a fortnight, he awoke one evening apparently free from fever.  His expression was natural, but he seemed so weak he could not speak.  His mother, with a heart overflowing with joy at the change she imagined favourable, bent over him.  With a great effort he placed his arms about her neck; she kissed his pale lips; a smile of strange meaning passed over his face, and ere she could unwind that loving clasp her little Johnny was no more.  He had gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest; but her hopes were blasted; her house was left unto her desolate; and as she watched, through