her, and providing for his children."

"Like most people, Margaret, you want to be advised to follow your
own counsel."

"God knows that I want to do right, John. I want to do nothing else,
John, but what's right. As to this money, I care but little for it
for myself."

"It is your own, and you have a right to enjoy it."

"I don't know much about enjoyment. As to enjoyment, it seems to me
to be pretty much the same whether a person is rich or poor. I always
used to hear that money brought care, and I'm sure I've found it so
since I had any."

"You've got no children, Margaret."

"No; but there are all those orphans. Am I not bound to look upon
them as mine, now that he has gone? If they don't depend on me, whom
are they to depend on?"

"If your mind is made up, Margaret, I have nothing to say against it.
You know what my wishes are. They are just the same now as when you
were last with us. It isn't only for the money I say this, though,
of course, that must go a long way with a man circumstanced as I am;
but, Margaret, I love you dearly, and if you can make up your mind to
be my wife, I would do my best to make you happy."

"I hadn't meant you to talk in that way, John," said Margaret.

But she was not much flurried. She was now so used to these overtures
that they did not come to her as much out of the common way. And she
gave herself none of that personal credit which women are apt to take
to themselves when they find they are often sought in marriage. She
looked upon her lovers as so many men to whom her income would be
convenient, and felt herself to be almost under an obligation to
them for their willingness to put up with the incumbrance which was
attached to it.

"But it's the only way I can talk when you ask me about this," said
he. Then he paused for a moment before he added, "How much is it you
wish to give to your brother's widow?"

"Half what I've got left."

"Got left! You haven't lost any of your money have you, Margaret?"

Then she explained to him the facts as to the loan, and took care
to explain to him also, very fully, the compensatory fact of the
purchase by the railway company. "And my promise to him was made
after I had lent it, you know," she urged.

"I do think it ought to be deducted; I do indeed," he said. "I am
not speaking on my own behalf now, as for the sake of my children,
but simply as a man of business. As for myself, though I do think I
have been hardly used in the ma