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Themselves the fathers and the dealers out Of some small blessings—have been kind to such As needed kindness; for this single cause. That we have all of us one human heart."

And this old and solitary woman had been the rallying point for much good feeling, evinced in numerous little acts of common service. Many a young girl would give an hour's time to the sewing and darning to which Mrs. Bird's eyes were no longer equal—many a neighbour rose somewhat earlier to help her in her garden; and not a creature went to or from market without pausing for a few minutes with the "poor soul who must be so lonely." Nor was the old dame without her kindness and her favours to bestow in return. She had more than once accommodated a friend with a humble, but most serviceable loan; and would rather give very dubious credit for sugar and raisins at Christmas, than "that the poor children should go without their bit of plum-pudding once a-year." She was learned in decocting all kinds of herb-tea, infallible in curing burns, sprains, and scalds; and not a few pennyworths of gingerbread and paradise (for the latter she was very famous) went among her young customers, for which the till was never the richer. No wonder, therefore, that her most barbarous murder exasperated the peasantry almost to frenzy against the supposed criminals. On the examination of the gipsies, nothing had been elicited from either in the slightest degree