She began to be in want,
and at first she received assistance from some of the friends of their
prosperity; but all hope of her husband's return was now abandoned; the
ship was not insured, and the mother and her family were reduced to
beggary. In order to support them, she sold one article of furniture
after another, until what remained was seized by the landlord in
security for his rent. It was then that Tibby and her children, with
scarce a blanket to cover them, were cast friendless upon the streets,
to die or to beg. To the last resource she could not yet stoop, and from
the remnants of former friendship she was furnished with a basket and a
few trifling wares, with which, with her children by her side, she set
out, with a broken and a sorrowful heart, wandering from village to
village. She had travelled in this manner for some months, when she drew
near her native glen, and the cottage that had been her father's, that
had been her own, stood before her. She had travelled all the day and
sold nothing. Her children were pulling by her tattered gown, weeping
and crying, "Bread, mother, give us bread!" and her own heart was sick
with hunger.
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