"No—it was taken this morning. Mr. Easy promised to see about it. But he didn't do so. When he went this afternoon, it was too late."
Hiram said this with a trembling voice, and lips that quivered.
"Thy will be done!" murmured the widow, lifting her eyes upward. "If these tender ones are to be taken from their mother's fold, oh, do thou temper for them the piercing blast, and be their shelter amid the raging tempests."
A tap at the door brought back the thoughts of Mrs. Mayberry. A brief struggle with her feelings, enabled her to overcome them in time to receive a visitor with composure. It was the merchant.
"Mr. Easy!" she said, in surprise.
"Mrs. Mayberry, how do you do?" There was some restraint and embarrassment in his manner. He was conscious of having neglected the widow of his friend, before he came. The humble condition in which he found her, quickened that consciousness into a sting.
"I am sorry, madam," he said, after he had become seated, and made a few inquiries, "that I did not get the place for your son. In fact, I am to blame in the matter. But I have been thinking since, that he would suit me exactly, and if you have no objections, I will take him, and pay him a salary of two hundred dollars for the first year."
Mrs. Mayberry tried to reply, but her feelings were too much excited by this sudden and unlooked-for proposal, to allow her to speak for some moments. Even then, her assent was made with tears glistening on her cheeks.
Arrangements were quickly made for the transfer of Hiram from the store where he had been engaged, to the counting-room of Mr. Easy. The salary he received was just enough to enable Mrs. Mayberry, with what she herself earned, to keep her little ones together, until Hiram, who proved a valuable assistant in Mr. Easy's business, could command a larger salary, and render her more important aid.