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276 SKETCHES.
information. We sat down, and in a voice which often
vainly strove to be firm, she continued: ‘My old good
Nanna was a servant in my parents’ house, and entered
into my service when I married. My husband and myself
possessed but little, but it was enough. He allowed him-
self to be persuaded to become security for one of his
friends, was deceived, and we lost our all. Broken down
with grief, after two years’ illness, he died, leaving me in
deep affliction, with two very young children, and with debts
which I found it impossible to discharge. In consequence
of grief and want of sleep, I had became very sickly, and
should certainly have perished in misery with my children,
if it had not been for my Nanna. Already during my hus-
band’s last illness, when she saw that the little which we had
left did not by far suffice for our housekeeping, and for the
extra expenses which his state of health made indispensa-
ble, she undertook, without our knowledge, to sell milk,
and what she earnt in that way, she employed for our ben-
. efit. After the death of my good husband, when I was
incapacitated from illness to do any thing, she entirely pro-
vided for me and for my poor children. She worked like a
slave all day long, and often in my sleepless nights I heard
the whirring of her spinning-whieel in the next room, or I
saw, through a chink in the door, the light of her candle at
which she sat working for my little ones and their poor
mother. Her indefatigable industry procured for us by
degrees better food, better clothing, and good lodgings; her
milk-trade gradually became more lucrative as she became
more known ; but all, all was spent upon us. She lived as
if she had no existence for herself; her bed was straw, her
food what we had left over, and never could our prayers
prevail upon her to share equally with us, even in trifles.
Always friendly and merry, although taciturn, we could
always read in her looks the words which she often used to
say in order to comfort us: “ Dearest lady! all will be well
again one day.” Yes, dear Nanna, you have made it well ;
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