ABSTRACT
T H E answer which Fanny Fletcher had received to her inquiries concerning Michael was as false as it was heedless. The little fellow who gave it had no intention of uttering what was untrue: he believed that the boy she inquired for was dead-so many had died, and been borne from the wretched garret where he had himself lain, battling with the fever, sometimes delirious, and sometimes asleep, that it was no great wonder he should blunder. But Michael Armstrong was not dead, though the state in which the malady left him was such, that for weeks the surly old woman, hired to supply the place of Mrs. Poulet, muttered curses on him for not being in a state to be quietly buried out of the way, like the rest.
