12 THE LAST PENNY.

 

she hardly took sufficient nourishment to
keep life in her attenuated frame.

“ Poor child !” said the mother one morn-
ing, “she cannot live if she doesn’t eat.
But coarse bread and potatoes and butter-
milk go against her weak stomach. Ah
me! If we only had a little that the rich
waste.”

‘There is a curse in poverty!” replied
Claire, with a bitterness that was unusual
to him, as he turned his eyes upon his
child, who had pushed away the food that
had been placed before her, and was look-
ing at it with an expression of disappoint-
ment on her wan face. “A curse in pover-
ty!” he repeated. “Why should my child
die for want of nourishing food, while the
children of the rich have every luxury?”

In the mind of Claire, there was usually
a dead calm. He plodded on, from day. to
day, eating his potatoes and buttermilk, or
whatever came before him, and working
steadily through the hours allotted to labour,
his hopes or fears in life rarely exciting him