“We have all our burdens and misfortunes,” continued the senior partner.  “Some have more, some have less.  To-day is your turn, to-morrow it may be mine.  But let us struggle on to the great goal, and the weight of our burden need never cause us to sink by the wayside.  And now I must wish you a very good morning, Mrs. Hudson.  Believe me, you have my hearty sympathy.”

The woman rose and then stood irresolute for a moment, as though there was something which she still wished to mention.

“When will I be able to draw Jim’s back pay, sir?” she asked nervously.  “I have pawned nigh everything in the house, and the child and me is weak from want of food.”

“Your husband’s back pay,” the merchant said, taking down a ledger from the shelf and turning rapidly over the leaves.  “I think that you are under a delusion, Mrs. Hudson.  Let me see—­Dawson, Duffield, Everard, Francis, Gregory, Gunter, Hardy.  Ah, here it is—­Hudson, boatswain of the Black Eagle.  The wages which he received amounted, I see, to five pounds a month.  The voyage lasted eight months, but the ship had only been out two months and a half when your husband died.”

“That’s true, sir,” the widow said, with an anxious look at the long line of figures in the ledger.

“Of course, the contract ended at his death, so the firm owed him twelve pounds ten at that date.  But I perceive from my books that you have been drawing half-pay during the whole eight months.  You have accordingly had twenty pounds from the firm, and are therefore in its debt to the amount of seven pounds ten shillings.  We’ll say nothing of that at present,” the senior partner concluded with a magnificent air.  “When you are a little better off you can make good the balance, but really you can hardly expect us to assist you any further at present.”

“But, sir, we have nothing,” Mrs. Hudson sobbed.

“It is deplorable, most deplorable.  But we are not the people to apply to.  Your own good sense will tell you that, now that I have explained it to you.  Good morning.  I wish you good fortune, and hope you will let us know from time to time how you go on.  We always take a keen interest in the families of those who serve us.”  Mr. Girdlestone opened the door, and the heart-sick little woman staggered away across the office, still bearing her heavy child.

When she got into the open air she stared around her like one dazed.  The senior clerk looked anxiously at her as he stood at the open door.  Then he glanced back into the office.  Ezra Girdlestone was deep in some accounts, and his brother clerks were all absorbed in their work.  He stole up to the woman, with an apologetic smile, slipped something into her hand, and then hurried back into the office with an austere look upon his face, as if his whole mind were absorbed in the affairs of the firm.  There are speculations above the ken of business men.  Perhaps, Thomas Gilray, that ill-spared half-crown of yours may bring in better interest than the five-and-twenty pounds of your employer.