Hans. His wife rushed to him, and flung her arms round him with wild exclamations; but he made no answer, and she could not see him clearly for the darkness. They drew Gretchen away, and laid him on the bed. A bright blaze sprung up in the fire, and showed to the horror-stricken wife the face of the dead.

Death, sudden and fearful death, had come upon the strong man in the flower of his vigour and hope. The blacksmith had been engaged on his usual labours, when the horse that he was shoeing gave him a violent kick on the forehead: he sank on the ground, and rose up no more a living man.

III.

LIGHT IN DARKNESS.

It was a mournful Christmas in the home of the widow and the fatherless. Until the day of the funeral, Gretchen, passive in her affliction, sat by the body of her husband, holding in her arms her sole treasure, her only child. She seemed calm, almost passionless; but her countenance, before so peaceful, was seamed with wrinkles that might have been the work of years, and her hair had grown gray in a single night. She kept her eyes fixed upon the corner where the dim outline of a human form was seen through the white covering, never moving them except to follow, with intense anxiety, every motion of little Quintin. To the child the scene was not new; he had seen death before, and had not feared to behold, and even to touch, the white marble figures of his brothers and sisters who had died since his infancy; but now he felt a strange awe, which kept him away from his father.

Those to whose hearths death comes slowly, preceded by long sickness, pain, and the anguish of suspense, can little imagine what it is when the work of the destroyer is done in a moment; when one hour makes the home desolate, the place vacant, the heart full of despair. And when, added to the deep sorrow within, comes the fear for the future without, the worldly thoughts and worldly cares that will intrude even in the bitterest and most sacred grief, when that loss brings inevitably with it the evils of poverty-then how doubly intense is the sense of anguish!"

Thus, when the remains of poor Hans Matsys had been laid beside those of his children, and the widow returned to her desolate cottage, it was no wonder than her strength and courage failed her. She burst into a flood of passionate grief, to which her quiet and subdued character had hitherto been a stranger, rocking herself to and fro in her chair, unconscious, or else heedless, of Quintin's attempts to console her.

My child! my child! we have no hope. God has forsaken

us!" she cried at last.

"You had not used to say that, mother, when Lisa died. You told me to be good, and then God would never forsake me."

"I did, I did," cried the stricken woman; "but it is different now! Oh, Hans, Hans! why did you go away and leave me alone, all alone!"

"Not quite alone, mother," said Quintin, raising himself, and standing upright before her with a serious firmness foreign to his years; "you have me-Quintin. I will take care of you." And he stretched out his arms to his mother, his face beaming with intense affection, and his eyes glowing with thoughts and resolves which even she could not fathom. However, there was something in the child's countenance which inspired her with hope: she felt that Quintin would one day or other be her stay and comfort.

"But," said she, after she and her son had sealed their mutual love and confidence in a long embrace, "how are we to live? Your poor father worked too hard to save money, except for the last year; and how are we to find food, now that he is no longer here to work for us? You are too young, my poor Quintin, to keep on the forge; it must go into other hands. There is no hope for us: we must starve!"

"We shall not starve!" cried the boy, his slight form dilating with the earnestness of his manner as he drew himself up to his full height. Mother, we shall not starve! I shall be a man soon; but, until then, we must be content with little. I can work well even now; whoever takes the forge will have me to help, I know. You can spin, mother, until I grow stronger and older, so as to be able to get money enough. You told me once, when I was trying to do something difficult, 'When there is a will, there is a way.' Now, mother, I have a will, a courageous one; and never fear but I shall make a way."

New comfort dawned on the widow's heart; she was no longer hopeless as before. The boy who, a few days before, had clung to her knees in childlike helplessness, looking to her for direction, advice, and assistance, now seemed to give her the counsel and strength of which she stood in such sore need. It is often so with those who are afterwards to be great among their fellowmen; in a few days, by some incident or sudden blow of misfortune, they seem to step at once from childhood to the threshold of premature manhood. With Quintin this change was not surprising; because his thoughts had ever been beyond his years, partly from the superiority of his mind even in childhood, and partly because he had lived entirely with his parents, and from various causes had never associated with those of his own age. These circumstances had given a maturity to his judgment and a strength to his feelings which made him, in the foregoing conversation with his mother, assume that unwonted energy and resolution which was afterwards the prominent feature of his character, and which even then was sufficient to make the forlorn

widow experience a feeling almost approaching to hope, as she read courage and firmness on every feature of the face of her only son.

From that time Quintin was no more a child. He seemed to think it incumbent on him to fill the place of his dead father; he went regularly to work at the forge, which had been taken by a kind-hearted neighbour, and Quintin's skill and dexterity atoned so much for his want of muscular strength, that he received good wages for a boy. These he regularly brought home; and no merchant ever told over the gains of his Indian vessels with more delight, than did Quintin count over the few pieces of silver into his mother's lap. There is a sweetness in the gains of labour which no gifts, however rich, can bestow; and Quintin often thought that the bread which was bought by his hard-earned money tasted better than any other. It might be that his mother thought so too; and when he stood beside her-Quintin now considered himself too old and manly to sit on his mother's knee-the smile returned to her face as she noticed his sturdy hands and cheek embrowned by labour, and said he was growing so like his father. No other eye would have traced the very faint resemblance between the honest but coarse features of the poor blacksmith, and the intellectual countenance of his son.

Quintin, after his father's death, occupied his leisure hours no more with the toys and trifles of his own manufacturing, in which he had before so much delighted. He would not waste a moment, and as soon as he returned from the forge, he always set himself to assist his mother in her household duties, suffering her to do nothing that he thought was too much for her strength, which had been much enfeebled by grief. Quintin was become a very girl in gentleness and in domestic skill, for he thought nothing beneath him which could lighten his mother's duties. He even learned to spin; and during the summer evenings Gretchen and her son sat together at their work, often until long after the inhabitants of the few scattered cottages around them had gone to rest. But Quintin and his mother feared the long bitter winter, and worked early and late to put by enough to keep them from poverty during the biting frost of their climate. Still, while they feared and took these precautions, they did not despair; for they knew how sorely such a feeling cramps the energies of even a strong mind, and thereby induces the very evils which are dreaded. So Quintin's hopeful spirit encouraged his mother, and they worked on, patiently waiting until better times should come.

IV.

THE GOOD ANGEL.

It was on a cold dreary February day that a boy came through the churchyard, where the poor, who had no storied epitaphs, nor

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white marble shrines, awaited in peace their resurrection from clay. The boy was thinly and poorly clad, and his face and bare hands were blue with cold. He walked slowly, in spite of the chilliness around him; for his spirit was very heavy, and his steps refused to move as those of one who carries a light heart in his bosom.

It was Quintin Matsys, who was coming from his daily labour to a sorrowful home; for the unusual severity of the winter had drained their little store, and Quintin knew now, for the first time, what poverty and hunger were. He thought, in his simplicity, that he would come round by his father's grave, and say his prayers there, hoping that God would hear them, and send comfort. Quintin crept rather than walked; for his poor little feet were frozen, and sharp pieces of ice every now and then pierced through his worn shoes. He was thankful to have been all day in the warm shelter of the forge; but that made him now feel more keenly the bitterness of the cold without. He came at last to the little green hillock which had been watered with so many tears; it was not green now, but covered with frozen snow; not soft, but hard and sharp.

The mist of a coming storm was gathering over the churchyard before Quintin had finished his orisons. The boy could. hardly distinguish the gate at which he entered, and was about to depart, when there rose up from a grave which he had not before noticed a white figure. It was slender and small; and Quintin's first thought was that an angel had been sent to answer his prayer. He was not alarmed; but knelt down again with folded hands, waiting to receive the heavenly messenger. But another glance told him that it was no angel that he saw, but a little girl wrapped in white fur, who came timidly to meet him. "Will you tell me who you are?" asked she, putting out from her mantle a warm little hand, which shrunk from the touch of Quintin's chilly fingers.

"My name is Quintin Matsys," answered the surprised boy. "You are very cold, poor Quintin, if that is your name. Give me your hands to warm them under my furs."

Quintin did so in silence.

"Where is your father?"

"Here!” said Quintin sadly, pointing to the grave. father has been dead a year."

her now.

"My

"They tell me that my mother is dead too, because I never see I sometimes come here to think of her. When my father is angry, I steal out of the house and come here, as I have done to-day. No one minds little Lisa."

"Lisa!—is your name Lisa ?" cried Quintin eagerly. "I had a sister Lisa once; but she was much older than you." And the boy looked earnestly in the beautiful childish face of his new friend, as if to trace some slight resemblance to the sister he had lost, but remembered so well.

"I will be your sister Lisa!" exclaimed the little girl. I like you-you look good." And she sprang up with a sudden impulse, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him. Quintin returned her affectionate embrace, and then asked her more about her father. He was a painter at Antwerp, and had been living near the village for several months-ever since his wife's death. "And now," said Quintin, "I must go home. My mother is ill, and I have stayed too long already; but I will not leave you here all alone, Sister Lisa ;" and the word Lisa lingered on the boy's lips with the fondness with which we pronounce a beloved name, even when owned by a stranger.

"Why did you not tell me your mother was ill? I live close by; we will go away together directly." And she took hold of his hand and set out.

The two young friends had not gone many steps when Quintin turned pale, and sank on a grave.

"What ails you, Brother Quintin ?" asked the frightened child.

"I do not know," said Quintin faintly.

The little girl tried to encourage him; and then, with childlike reasoning, thought that something good would be the best resource. She drew from her pocket a sweetmeat, which she put in Quintin's mouth. He devoured it eagerly, and then, looking wistfully at her, he cried-" Have you another?" But immediately a crimson blush overspread his face. "I was wrong," said he, "to ask; but I am so hungry. I have tasted nothing since yesterday."

"Not eaten since yesterday!" exclaimed his compassionate little friend. "Poor Quintin I-no wonder you are tired! And your mother-has she nothing to eat?"

"I fear not indeed-unless some charitable neighbour has given her some dinner.”

Lisa felt again in her pocket, and produced a biscuit, which she made Quintin eat; and then, as soon as he was able to go forward, she pulled him on. "I will go home with you, Quintin," said she. "Here is a fine gold piece that my father gave me; we will go and buy some supper, and take it together to your mother. I am very hungry too, and I will sup with you," she added with instinctive delicacy of feeling, wonderful in a child.

Quintin yielded to her gentle arguments; and, laden with good things, he and Lisa entered his mother's cottage. She was sitting, exhausted, beside the fireless and cheerless hearth; a small rush-candle in one corner just showed the desolation of the cottage, for they had been obliged to part with one thing after another to preserve life. The two children entered hand-inhand. Gretchen looked surprised, but, from feebleness, did not speak.

"Mother, dear mother," cried Quintin, "I have brought you a good angel, who has come to save us from dying of hunger."

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