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Feeling carefully around the ruins, they discovered the shelving protection of the roof as it leaned up against the wall, and one after another they crept in and rolled themselves up in the old untouched garments they had left there and in the vicious straw. Their well-filled whisky jug they took in with them. Full and heavy draughts from this relieved their half-sobered senses, and sent over them quickly the benumbing touch of a heavy and prolonged inebriacy. The three lay coiled together long after the sun arose in the morning, and no one of them left the rude shelter during the whole day.

At evening, Mag Davis made her way back to the poor-house, and John and Polly kindled a fire on the hearth, easily finding fuel in the ruins of their splintered dwelling. John soon fell asleep again from renewed potations of whisky, concealed in a smaller flask from Mag, (or she had not left them,) and Polly sat on the straw watching the fire and feeding it, as she quietly at the same time took from the loosening grasp of her husband the half emptied flask, and drank her married half! "Was not she his wife?

CHAPTER XXV.
POLLY in the Ruins.

The next day was the Sabbath. No one passed by the ruined house that day. And Monday came, but no one was astir there, and Tuesday morning, fresh and calm and beautiful, a mild, warm, melting day of early March arrived.

Mrs. Phillips wondered that Polly had not come, as she had promised ten days before, to help about her washing on Monday. The Phillips lived not half a mile from the Tuckers, on another and handsomer road, where there were large and fine dwellings and farms. They often crossed the fields to Tuckers if any thing was wanted, and on Tuesday morning, as Polly did not make her appearance, Mrs. Phillips sent over their hired man to bring her.

The faithful fellow stopped in perfect astonishment as he came up near the house to see the plight of things, and would have turned about without more ado, sup- posing, of course, no one was there, had he not, on coming a little nearer, heard something like a groan and a curse arising out of the ruins. Half afraid, he approached quite to the broken walls of the house, and called lustily --

"Halloa there! John -- an' is it you, sure?"

"No, you , it's me and Pol. What the you

want to groan so for, Pol -- can't you bear it, hey?"

"No, I can't, John Tucker -- call him in, that's Miss Phillips' man," and Polly Tucker groaned heavily, so that Peter, who stood outside, heard her plainly and knew that there was trouble. At first he thought John had been beating, and had half killed her.

"Halloa there, Pete! Is it you?" said Tucker.

"An' sure it is, John Tucker. What'll ye be after having of me?"

"Come here, Pete I There, do you see. "We're in a pig's house here, ha! ha! But Poll's got firedly scorched, and can't help herself, she says. How is 't, old woman, hey?"

"Pete, do you go home and tell Miss Phillips I'm half burnt up! Go, for the Lord's sake. Go."

"Don't be in a hurry about it," cried old Tucker, as he saw Peter start back from the entrance and hasten away.

* * * * * * *

It is well that there are kind, truly benevolent hearts in this bad, this foul, this drunken world! That there are those to whom the wicked even flee in their times of wretchedness and misery, and on them call in earnest voices for relief.

Scarcely an hour has passed away, and a tender, delicate woman and one of her neighbors, accompanied to the ruins by their husbands, have crept in on their hands and knees, to find this groaning, blackened, suffering fellow-creature. The brutal husband, grown more sober, passes out into the light of day. But he can answer no questions, he knows nothing of what has happened save that "Poll is half burnt to death."

Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Wilson, her neighbor, discovered as soon as they entered this loathsome covert, that Polly had been very badly burned about the arms, and chest and face. Her face was blackened by it to her forehead; her eye-brows burned off, her eyes were badly inflamed and swollen, and by the long neglect, for she was burnt that Saturday evening, when we left her by the fire she had kindled, the skin was peeling off and dripping from her arms and breast. She was in real agony, and besought them, if it lay in their power, to apply something that would allay the burning and painful sensation, that seemed ready to consume her every moment!

The ladies removed her soiled and half-consumed garments, but the crisp and blackened skin followed them. They applied oil, and cotton, and flour to the surface, binding up carefully the deepest wounds, and then put on her new and clean garments throughout. As it was impossible to remove her, they ordered over a soft feather bed; they scraped out and brushed away all the old filth and straw, and made her as comfortable as the circumstances of the case allowed.

"Tell us, Polly, if you can," said Mrs. Phillips, "tell us all about it. How did it happen?"