"Oh, but she's all I has," he sobbed.

"Yes, poor boy, I know," she replied. "But if your sister leaves you she'll be better off, and will not have to tramp the streets in the cold and wet; so you must think that what is your loss will be her gain."

Nelly raised her eyes to the nurse with a grateful look for talking to Benny in that way. And before he left he had grown calm, and seemingly resigned. It was a painful parting; but Nelly did her best to cheer him up, reminding him that in two days he would be able to come and see her again.

Granny was in great trouble at the absence of the children, and it was no small relief to her when, about noon, Benny put in an appearance at Tempest Court. One look at his face, however, was sufficient to convince her that something had happened, and when Benny told her what had befallen his little Nell, the old woman sat down and cried; for she knew very well that never more would the little face brighten the dingy court. And granny had got to love the sweet, patient little child as her own; and though for months she had been convinced that the little flower was marked to fall, yet it had come in a way she had not expected, and, like Benny, she felt it very hard to give her up.

After dinner Benny went out again to face the world. It was with a very sad heart that he did it; for he felt that from henceforth he would have to fight the battle of life alone.

Chapter XII - Fading Away

*

The morning flowers displayed their sweets,
And gay their silken leaves unfold,
As careless of the noontide heats,
As fearless of the evening cold.

Nipt by the winds unkindly blast,
Parched by the sun's directer ray,
The momentary glories waste,
The short-lived beauties die away.
—S. Wesley.

Joe Wrag heard the news in silence. Benny, who had gone to him to tell him what had happened to Nell, was not half pleased that he said nothing in reply. But Joe was too troubled to talk. Like granny, he had known for months what was coming, but it had come suddenly, and in a way that he had not expected, and the old man, as he afterwards expressed it, was "struck all of a heap."

Benny waited for some time, but finding Joe was not inclined to talk, he made his way home, leaving the old man gazing into the fire, with a vacant look in his eyes and a look of pain upon his face.

No one ever knew what the old man suffered that night. It was like tearing open the wound that had been made twenty years before, when his only son, as the crowning act of his unkindness, ran away from home, and had never since been heard of.