“Oh, Anne! how your face is all flushed!” said her little brother, as she looked up when he came into the room.
“Have you brought us any money?” whispered she: “don’t say No loud, for fear father should hear you.” The boy told her in a low voice all that had passed.
“Speak out, my dear, I’m not asleep,” said his father. “So you are come back as you went?”
“No, father, not quite—there’s bread coming for you.”
“Give me some more water, Anne, for my mouth is quite parched.”
The little boy cut his orange in an instant, and gave a piece of it to his father, telling him, at the same time, how he came by it The sick man raised his hands to heaven, and blessed the poor woman who gave it to him.
“Oh, how I love her! and how I hate that cruel, unjust, rich man, who won’t pay father for all the hard work he has done for him!” cried the child: “how I hate him!”
“God forgive him!” said the weaver. “I don’t know what will become of you all, when I’m gone; and no one to befriend you, or even to work at the loom. Anne, I think if I was up,” said he, raising himself, “I could still contrive to do a little good.”
“Dear father, don’t think of getting up; the best you can do for us is to lie still and take rest.”
“Rest! I can take no rest, Anne. Rest! there’s none for me in this world. And whilst I’m in it, is not it my duty to work for my wife and children? Reach me my clothes, and I’ll get up.”