nd a half a week, in the busy
season?"

If Mr. Royden hesitated at this reasonable suggestion of the girl's
mother, it was only because he knew his wife would hardly be satisfied
to pay so much. But a glance around the room, in which a struggle with
poverty was so easily to be seen, decided him. What was a quarter, a
half, or even a dollar a week, to come out of his pocket? How much the
miserable trifle might be, falling into the feeble palm of the ghastly
woman, whom trouble had crushed, and who found it such a hard and
wretched task to toil and keep her family together!

"I can't come until the last of the week, any way," said Maggie.

"I am sorry for that," replied Mr. Royden.

"I might get along as early as Wednesday; Monday I am engaged to Deacon
Dustan's----"

"I shouldn't care if you broke that engagement," said Mrs. Bowen. "Rich
people as the Dustans are, they an't willing to pay a poor girl
thirty-seven and a half cents for a hard day's work a washing!"

"I must go, since I have promised," quietly observed Margaret. "Tuesday
I shall have a good many things to do for myself. So I guess you may
expect me Wednesday morning."

"Well, Wednesday be it; I will send over for you before breakfast," said
Mr. Royden. "Now, I want you to make up your mind to get along with us
as well as you can, and you shall have a dollar and a half, and a
handsome present besides."

Having concluded the bargain, Mr. Royden took leave of the family, with
his companion.

"Lord bless you, sir!" said Job, when he shook hands with the clergyman.
"You have done me a vast sight of good! I feel almost another man. Do
come again, sir; we need a little comfort, now and then."

"I hope your minister calls occasionally?" suggested Father Brighthopes.

"Not often, sir, I am sorry to say. He's over to Deacon Dustan's every
day; but he never got as far as here but once. And I'd just as lives he
wouldn't come. He didn't seem comfortable here, and I thought he was
glad to get out of sight of poverty. He's a nice man,--Mr. Corlis is,
sir,--but he hasn't a great liking to poor people, which I s'pose is
nat'ral."

"Well, you shall see me again, Providence permitting," cried Father
Brighthopes, cheerfully. "Keep up a good heart," he added, shaking hands
with Mrs. Bowen. "Christ is a friend to you; and there's a glorious
future for all of us. Good-by! good-by! God bless you all!"

He took the grandmother's hand again, and pressed it in silence