A wild cry broke from the lips of the agonized mother, and she fell forward upon the bed, with a frantic gesture.

The father felt like one freezing into ice.  He could not speak nor move; how long this state remained he knew not.  A long, troubled, dreary period seemed to pass, and then all was clear again.  His wife had risen from the bed, and left the chamber.  Little Harry had been removed from the crib, but Kate and Mary were still on the bed, with every indication of a violent attack of the same disease that had robbed them of their two oldest children.  He was about leaving the room for the purpose of inquiring whether a physician had been sent for, when the door opened and the doctor came in with Mrs. Bancroft.  The stern expression that but lately rested upon the face of the latter, had passed away.  She looked kindly and tenderly into her husband’s face, and even leaned her head against him while the physician proceeded to examine the children.

But little, if any encouragement was offered to the unhappy parents.  The incipiency of the disease gave small room for hope, it was so like the usual precursor of the direful malady they feared.

Ten days of awful suspense and fear succeeded to this, and then the worst came.  Two happy voices that had, for so many years, echoed through the familiar places of home, were hushed forever.  Kate and Mary were no more.  But, as if satisfied, death passed, and Harry was spared.

Three were now all that remained of the large and happy household; the babe, whose coming had awakened afresh the murmurings of the father, and clear little Harry, just snatched, as it were, from the jaws of death, and the gay, dancing Lizzy, whose voice had, lost much of its silvery sweetness.  Mrs. Bancroft did not again, either by look or word, repeat or refer to her stunning rebuke.  But her husband could not forget it.  In fact, it had awakened his mind to a most distressing sense of the folly, not to say sin, of which he had been guilty.

In self upbraidings, in the bitterness of grief for which there came no alleviation, the time passed on, and Mr. Bancroft lived in the daily fear of receiving a still deeper punishment.

One day, most disastrous intelligence came to the office in which he was employed.  There had been a fierce gale along the whole coast, and the shipping had suffered severely.  The number of wrecks, with the sacrifice of life, was appalling.  Among the vessels lost, were ten insured in the office.  Nothing was saved from then.  Five were large vessels, and the others light crafts.  The loss was fifty thousand dollars.  Following immediately upon this, was another loss of equal amount arising from the failure of a certain large moneyed institution, in the stock of which the company had invested largely.

In consequence of this serious diminution of the company’s funds, the directors found themselves driven to make sacrifices of property, and to diminish all expenses.