yesterday.--To the glass of wine and biscuit when I was faint, and
to the early and good dinner, when exhausted nature was crying for
food. I believe, Mrs. Wykoff"--and Mary's eyes glistened--"that if
you had not thought of me when you did, I should not be here
to-day."

"Are you serious, Mary?"

"I am, indeed, ma'am. I should have got over my faint spell in the
morning, even without the wine and biscuit, and worked on until
dinner-time; but I wouldn't have been able to eat anything. It
almost always happens, when I go so long without food, that my
appetite fails altogether, and by the time night comes, I sink down
in an exhausted state, from which nature finds it hard to rally. It
has been so a number of times. The week before I came here, I was
sewing for a lady, and worked from eight o'clock in the morning
until four in the afternoon, without food passing my lips. As I had
been unable to eat anything at breakfast-time, I grew very faint,
and when called to dinner, was unable to swallow a mouthful. When I
got home in the evening I was feverish and exhausted, and coughed
nearly all night. It was three or four days before I was well enough
to go out again."

"Has this happened, in any instance, while you were sewing for me?"
asked Mrs. Wykoff.

Miss Carson dropped her face, and turned it partly aside; her manner
was slightly disturbed.

"Don't hesitate about answering my question, Mary. If it has