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she laid up a large stock of knowledge, which has since been invaluable to herself and others.

We have now to view Catherine in quite a new sphere of life. She was married to a person deserving of her affection, but not till she had received a promise that she should be permitted to take her mother home to live with her, for she was now old and infirm. A small house was taken and furnished, and the marriage promised every prospect of happiness. This might be called a bright gleam in Catherine's existence. When she had become the mother of two children, her husband died, and to add to her troubles, her mother became blind and insane.

Catherine's case may now be considered to have been deplorable —a widow, the mother of two children, one a new-born infant, no means of subsistence, and with a superannuated and blind parent depending upon her. Some women, in such circumstances, would have sat down and wept, pined in sorrow, or gone to the workhouse. Catherine had a soul above all this. She acutely felt the blow, but she also knew that it was a dispensation of Providence which ought to be borne. When the first emotions of distress were past, she courageously yoked to the task of supporting her dependent family. Catherine despised to eat the bread of idleness.

Worth never wants friends. Catherine's case excited pity among her neighbours, and her good character secured her a respectable wet-nursing. She refused to leave home for this purpose, and the baby was committed to her charge. By this means, and a trifle of wages owing to her husband, she contrived to live over a year. Now she behoved to face the world. The difficulty of obtaining work was at this time very great. There was much suffering among the operatives throughout the country, and among all who depended upon their daily labour for subsistence. The only employment of which Catherine could procure an offer was work at a nail-factory, for which she was not well fitted. However, she gladly availed herself of it, because the work was paid according to the number of nails made, and she could absent herself to give a brief attendance on her mother and children. The employment was hard, and poorly paid. She generally wrought at large nails, of which she was able to make about 800 daily; but of the same kind some men can make double that number. Her earnings were, on an average, fifteenpence per day; yet, though small, they were still precious to her, because they were her own earnings. No one knew better than herself how to receive a favour, or how to confer one; but she would not willingly accept the means of support from another, when she could obtain them by her own industry. She has been known to work in this factory till her fingers were blistered, and she could do no more; she would then remain at home, and poultice them till they were sufficiently recovered to enable her to resume her work. She and her mother at that time often suffered from hunger.

Her necessities were known to a kind friend, whose own means were small, but who yet contrived occasionally to furnish her with a good meal. Through this friend she sometimes obtained a supply of flowers or bouquets, by the sale of which she provided for her wants when she had no other means of obtaining sub

sistence.

In expedients like these she passed some years, during which the insanity of her mother was at times so outrageous as greatly to endanger any one who had the charge of her; yet this charge she could not relinquish. She would not hear of the removal of her parent to a place of confinement. No labours and no sufferings could weaken her filial reverence and affection. At length, however, it became necessary for her mother's own safety that she should be in the charge of those more competent to the task of restraining her, and she was removed to the workhouse. But the heart of the devoted daughter was still with her; and from week to week Catherine strained every nerve, and straitened herself in every way, that she might regularly carry to her mother all the comforts she could procure. Nor were her trials those only of the early death of her husband and the long insanity of her mother. Her eldest son was a severe sufferer from his birth till the age of twenty, when he died. It is hardly to be conceived how much she did and endured for this boy. For weeks together, after a hard day's work, she was up through the whole night, kneeling by him, that he might have his arms around her neck for support, because he was unable to lie down. Her patience and love seemed to be inexhaustible, and the strength which she exerted through her afflictions almost miraculous.

The lad was a dutiful and affectionate child. He had a heart like his mother, strong both to love and to endure. For a time, Catherine seemed hardly able to sustain his loss. She could not sleep, and with difficulty could take even the smallest portion of food. Her inability to sleep awakened the desire to pass her nights with the sick; but she found this recalled the memory of her son too strongly, and she did not persist in it. Desirous to fill the vacuity in her house, she now, to use her own expression, 'inquired for some family who wanted a person to take care of some tedious children.' Her surviving child often gave her great pain. He exhibited strong indications of inheriting the insanity of his grandmother, having at times an ungovernable wildness of manner; yet, when not under excitement, he was an amiable, kind, and obedient boy.

When Catherine worked in the nail-factory, she formed a friendship with another woman who also worked there. This poor creature afterwards became blind and helpless. She had for some time previously been greatly disabled, and Catherine had never failed to do what she could for her. But now she took her to her own house, and for seven years supported her entirely. She carried her

up-stairs at night, and brought her down in the morning. At length, when her son became so ill that she could not leave him, and her means of support were wholly unequal to the increased expense, she sent her blind friend to the workhouse; yet her interest in the poor sufferer never declined. Her care for her was like that of a mother for a child. She never omitted once a week to send her a little tea and sugar, that she might not be made uncomfortable by the want of these accustomed gratifications. It happened that this poor blind woman had a son in the workhouse, who was a cripple, and nearly an idiot. The child was dear to his mother; and when she took her tea, she gave him a part of it. This became one of his highest gratifications; and after the death of his mother, he was greatly distressed by the loss of this indulgence. Catherine therefore promised him that while she lived she would bring him tea and sugar, as she had brought them to his mother; and she kept her word. On one occasion, a friend called upon Catherine, and found an old woman with her who had a number of small parcels in her hand. On noticing these parcels, she informed the visitor that they contained a little tea, sugar, and snuff, and that they were for a woman in the workhouse nearly a hundred years old. 'She knew my parents,' said Catherine; and I daresay assisted my mother when she needed; so it is just a little acknowledgment. There are other old persons there to whom I would be glad to send something, if I had the means.'

After Catherine left the nail-factory, she supported her family by mangling; a benevolent gentleman in the neighbourhood, who was struck with her character, having assisted her to purchase a mangle at a sale of effects. By means of it and a little charingwork she lived for several years, till her mother died, when she had no longer an inducement to remain in the place; and she removed with her only surviving son to Liverpool, where she was fortunate in getting him some small employment suited to his infirmities. She took her mangle with her, and therefore we have now to follow her to one of the humblest dwellings in a back-street of that large town. Here she laboured, struggled to keep up a good name, and to do all the good she could within her sphere. On one occasion, a poor woman, a Mrs O'Brien, came into the neighbourhood to look for lodgings, but could nowhere obtain a room. 'She must not die in the street,' said Catherine. Yet what was to be done? Catherine lost no time in answering this question. The door of her house was opened, and Mrs O'Brien and her children at once found a home there. In a fortnight, this woman died; but poor as she had been, her heart was bound up in her children, and her great solicitude in death was for them. With the full sympathies of a mother, Catherine promised to do for these children as if they were her own; and this promise she faithfully fulfilled.

Another Irishwoman, Bridget M'Ann, was a common beggar.

Her appearance indicated extreme distress, and no inconsiderable disease; yet she was unwilling to go into the infirmary, because she would there be separated from her children. Catherine visited this woman, gained her confidence, persuaded her to allow her eldest boy to be put into the workhouse, and took the youngest, about two years old, under her own charge. She nursed this child carefully, sent some of her own clothes to the mother, and took a change of clothes to her every week; yet for all these kind offices she had scarcely any other return than reproaches and complaints. The clothes, it was said, were not well washed, nor was anything done for her as it should be done. But Catherine was neither to be fatigued by service nor discouraged by ingratitude. She felt the claims of weakness, ignorance, and suffering in this poor beggar far more strongly than she felt any injury to herself. She kept the child for some months, till the mother reclaimed it; and then gave up her charge only because she was allowed to hold it no longer. It is only from such facts that one knows how much the poor often do for the poor.

After a few years' residence in Liverpool, Catherine's son died, which was a sore grief to her, for she was now alone in the world, and had no longer any one of her own family to love. To fill up the vacancy, she gladly took charge of three children from a widower, a respectable man in the neighbourhood, who engaged to pay her twelve shillings a week for their board. She, however, had not long had the children under her roof, when the health of the man failed, and he was unable to earn the amount he had agreed to pay her. So anxious, however, was he to do what he could in payment for the relief and comfort he had received, that he was actually at his work on the week in which he died. Catherine kindly waited upon him on his deathbed, and although he professed a different form of religious belief from her own, brought him, unasked, a clergyman of his own persuasion. She said she thought people always go fastest to heaven upon their own road.' On his dying bed, this poor man besought her to retain the charge of his children. She gave him her word that she would; and she admirably performed her promise. After a time, the youngest boy was placed in a charity-school, where she maintained a faithful supervision of him; and when he left it, she fitted him out for sea, and continued to care for him whenever he returned from a voyage. The girl she kept two or three years, till she found a good place for her. And the eldest boy, owing to the failure of the master to whom he was apprenticed, was for several years a considerable expense to her. A fellow-apprentice earned only four shillings a week: his own father refused to keep him for so small a sum. The anxiety and grief of his mother were extreme, and she applied to Kitty upon the subject, who told the mother that, on condition of the good-conduct of the boy, she would receive him into her family.

At the first appearance of cholera in England, great anxiety was manifested to guard against it, and cleanliness was especially enjoined. The habits of the very poor, and their few conveniences, made the washing and drying of clothing and bedding very difficult. Catherine's house at this time consisted of a small kitchen, a little parlour, two or three chambers, and a small yard at the back of the house. In the kitchen, she had a copper. She fastened ropes across the yard, and offered her poor neighbours the free use of them and her kitchen for washing and drying their clothes. She also took charge of clothes and bedding which were lent for the use of the poor. So apparent was the benefit derived by the families who availed themselves of Catherine's kindness, that a benevolent society was led to provide a common cellar where families might wash every week.

The establishment thus begun was found very useful; and in cases of cholera or fever, medical men were accustomed to send a note with the clothes used by a patient, or when a change of linen was required; hired washers being employed for the service of the sick. This plan made neighbours willing to lend clothes and bedding, since no risk of contagion was incurred. During the second year of the cholera, one hundred and forty dozen articles of clothing for men and women, one hundred and fifty-eight sheets, thirty-four beds, sixty quilts, and one hundred blankets, were washed in this establishment in one week.

The cholera principally attacked the heads of families, especially those who were in a state of exhaustion from fatigue or want of food. It frequently happened that the sufferers had neither food nor fuel, while the rigorous quarantine led to a dearth of employment. Catherine divided her own stores as far as she could with the sufferers around her. A supply of oatmeal was given her, and with this she made porridge every morning for a number who would otherwise probably have had no breakfast; and at one time she thus supplied sixty with daily food. A neighbour every evening went three miles into the country for the milk for this porridge.

Wherever the disease appeared among those who knew Catherine, her presence and aid were felt to be of high importance. The physicians were quite unable to meet the calls that were made upon them; she therefore went to them for advice, administered the remedies which were prescribed, and carried back accounts of her patients. It seemed impossible that she should obtain rest either night or day. She found a vacant room, on the floor of which she could spread some bedding, and there she provided a lodging for families in which death had occurred, and whose rooms, it was thought, should be vacated for a time, that they might be purified. One of the first cases of cholera occurred in the street where Catherine lived. A widower, with two young children boarding with a poor woman, was taken suddenly ill, and died. To prevent unnecessary

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