14 THE LAST PENNY.

 

mending a pair of boots and taken them
home, he meant to get a new supply of the
fragrant weed. The boots had only half an
hour’s work on them. But a few stitches
had been taken by the cobbler, when he
heard the feeble voice of Lizzy calling to
him from the bottom of the stairs. That
voice never came unregarded to his ears.
He laid aside his work, and went down for
his patient child, and as he took her light
form in his arms, and bore her up into his
little work-shop, he felt that he pressed
against his heart the dearest thing to him
in life. d with this feeling, came the
bitter certainty that soon she would pass
away and be no more seen. Thomas Claire
did not often indulge in external manifes-
tations of feeling; but now, as he held
Lizzy in his arms, he bent down his face
and kissed her cheek tenderly. A light,
like a gleam of sunshine, fell suddenly upon
the pale countenance of the child, while a
faint, but loving smile played about her
lips. Her father kissed her again, and then