Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/126

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120
ANNALS OF THE

a true one, and by proper care he lived to follow his sovereigns home.

The astonishing suffering and self-denial of that people for their friends, is almost heart-rending. It is expected that mothers will suffer, and even die for their famishing little ones, if needful; but to see children suffer for one another was magnanimity above all. Two little orphan boys, one about nine and the other five, called at the door of a rich widow of my acquaintance, and asked for food. The woman had consumed all her bread at breakfast but a small piece, and giving this to the eldest, she said, "You must divide this with your little brother; I have no more." She looked after them unperceived, and saw them stop, when the eldest said, "Here, Johnny, you are littler than I, and cannot bear the hunger so well, and you shall have it all." They were both houseless orphans and starving with hunger.

I found here, at Newport, misery without a mask; the door and window of the kind Mrs. Arthur wore a spectacle of distress indescribable; naked, cold, and dying, standing like petrified statues at the window, or imploring, for God's sake, a little food, till I almost wished that I might flee into the wilderness, far, far from the abode of any living creature.

Mrs. Arthur said, "I have one case to place before you, and will leave all the rest to your own discretion. I have fed a little boy, once a day, whose parents and brothers and sisters are dead, with the exception of one little sister. The boy is seven years old, the sister five.