When the next spring opened, Wilmer was not only confined to the house, but unable to sit up, except for a few hours at a time through the day.  His wife’s health had suffered much, and all the hours she sat at her needle, were hours of painful endurance.  Spring passed away, and summer came.  But the milder airs had no kind effect upon the fast sinking frame of her husband.  He was rapidly going down to the grave, his last hours embittered by the sight of his wife and children suffering before him.

During the month of August, Wilmer declined so fast, and needed such constant attention, that his wife could find but little time to devote to her needle.  What she thus lost in the day-time, she had to make up, as far as possible, by encroaching upon the night hours, and often the lamp by her side would grow dim before the light of day, while she still bent in weariness and pain, over the work that was to give bread to her children.

For some months her work had been confined to one shop, the master of which was not always punctual in paying her the pittance she earned.  Instead of handing her, whenever she called, the trifle due her, he made her procure a little book in which he would enter the work, promising to pay when it would amount to a certain sum.  In anxious hope would Mrs. Wilmer wait until her earnings rose to the required amount; but not always then could she get her due; there would too frequently be a part payment, or a request to call in a day or two.

One day towards the first of September, she found that both food and money were out.  She was just finishing a couple of vests for the clothing-shop, and there were more than three dollars due to her.  While turning over in her own mind the hope that Mr.—­would pay her the small sum due, when she carried in the work, and troubled the While with fears lest he should deny her, as he had often done before; her husband, whose bright eye had been upon her for some time, and whose countenance, unseen by her, had expressed an earnest, yet hesitating desire to ask for something, said—­

“Constance, I don’t know whether you are able to get them, but if you can, I should like, above all things, to have some grapes.”

“Then you shall have some,” Constance replied, earnestly and affectionately.  “I am sure they will help you.  Why did I not think of this for you long ago?”

Resuming her needle, she plied it with double swiftness, her heart trembling lest when she asked for her money at the shop, it should be refused her.  At last the work was done and she carried it in.  It was entered, and her book handed back to her.  She paused a moment, then turned to go out, but she could not go home without some money.  Hesitatingly she asked to have her due, but it was refused on some excuse of having a large payment to make on that very day.  Again she turned to go, but again turned to ask for only a part of what was her own.  One dollar was thrown her with an unkind remark.  The first she seized with avidity, the last passed her ear unheeded.