child by my first husband; but I was soon roused from my grief. William
schemed and speculated, as everybody does in America, and so we lost all;
and William was weakly and could not work. At length he got the place of
steward on board a vessel from New York to Liverpool, and I was taken to
assist in the cabin. We wanted to come to London; I thought my old
benefactor might do something for us, though he had never answered the
letters I sent to him. But poor William fell ill on board, and died in
sight of land."

Mrs. Elton wept bitterly, but with the subdued grief of one to whom tears
have been familiar; and when she recovered, she soon brought her humble
tale to an end. She herself, incapacitated from all work by sorrow and a
breaking constitution, was left in the streets of Liverpool without other
means of subsistence than the charitable contributions of the passengers
and sailors on board the vessel. With this sum she had gone to London,
where she found her old patron had been long since dead, and she had no
claims on his family. She had, on quitting England, left one relation
settled in a town in the North; thither she now repaired, to find her
last hope wrecked; the relation also was dead and gone. Her money was
now spent, and she had begged her way along the road, or through the
lanes, she scarce knew whither, till the accident which, in shortening
her life, had raised up a friend for its close.

"And such, sir," said she in conclusion, "such has been the story of my
life, except one part of it, which, if I get stronger, I can tell better;
but you will excuse that now."

"And are you comfortable and contented, my poor friend? These people are
kind to you?"