Just eight fortnights from this time, it happened that one hot summer'sday, Mrs. Newton went to look out from her cottage entrance down theroad, and she saw a young woman standing there, leaning against atree, and looking very faint and weak.

She was touched with pity and asked the poor traveller to walk intoher home and rest. The young woman thankfully consented, for shesaid she was fairly ill; but she added, that her husband was comingafter her, having been obliged to turn back for a parcel that wasleft way behind at the home where they had halted some time before, andtherefore she would sit near the door and watch for him.

Before, however, the husband came, the poor woman was takendreadfully ill; and when he did arrive, good Mrs. Newton could notbear to put the poor creature out of the house in such a state; shebecame worse and worse. In short, that poor young woman was Fanny'smother, and when little Fanny was born, that poor sick mother died,and Fanny never saw a mother's chuckle.