s summer, I fear. I know it will be
lonely for you at uncle Joshua's, but for your own sake and the dear
baby's, it must be done. Let us be of good cheer, and perhaps by fall
business will revive and my salary be increased, or I can get a
better position. Now good-bye, my blossoms, I must be gone," and he
sprang away down the stairs hastily, lest Faith should see that his
courage was more than half assumed, for the prospect before him was
dismal in the extreme.

What Mrs. Vincent did when her husband left her we already know, yet
she was not one to sit down in weeping despair before a difficulty
until every energy had been put forth to remove it. She sat long and
pondered the question; no light came, although she bent her white
brows into a deep frown in perplexed thought.

"If I could only keep house," she mused. "Frank imagines I know
nothing of cooking. I'd just like to have him eat some bread and
puffy biscuits of my making. I am so glad I never told him that I
took lessons of Dinah all one winter before we were married. I'll
surprise that boy some day with my knowledge. If it were not for the
horrid heat of the cook-stove, I know I could keep house nicely, and
save money, too, I dare say; but, my head never would endure a hot
kitchen, I suppose."

Just here the clock chimed out ten, reminding Faith of an engagement
at the dressmaker's. Leaving Daisy with her young nurse, she was soon
on her way, not to "Madame Aubrey's," but to plain Mrs. Macpherson's,
who lived up two flights of stairs, and was nevertheless "a good
fitter," and kept her rooms and herself as neat as wax.

While Faith waited, and the busy shears slipped and snipped her
wrapper, she had time to look about her. The rooms wore such a
pleasant, home-like air; they were cool and comfortable-looking, and
not a fly to be seen. Faith, reared to the finest and best of
everything, now looked with almost covetous eyes on this poor, plain
home.

"What a cosy place you have here, Mrs. Macpherson," she said, and she
wearily leaned her head back in the comfortable old rocking-chair,
newly covered with chintz. "It is so nice, I would like to stay."

Mrs. Macpherson glanced up in surprise, the tones were such tired,
sad ones. She noticed for the first time the dark rings under Faith's
eyes, and the eyes themselves looked suspiciously red. Her motherly
heart went out to the "poor young thing" straightway.

"Something troubles you, child," she said, "or you d