lked more quietly from now on, and gradually, as the details
were exhausted, a kind of dumb peace settled down upon the
household.

"One of us ought to go to the train to meet him in the morning,"
said Jennie to Bass. "I will. I guess Mrs. Bracebridge won't
mind."

"No," said Bass gloomily, "you mustn't. I can go."

He was sour at this new fling of fate, and he looked his feelings;
he stalked off gloomily to his room and shut himself in. Jennie and
her mother saw the others off to bed, and then sat out in the kitchen
talking.

"I don't see what's to become of us now," said Mrs. Gerhardt at
last, completely overcome by the financial complications which this
new calamity had brought about. She looked so weak and helpless that
Jennie could hardly contain herself.

"Don't worry, mamma dear," she said, softly, a peculiar resolve
coming into her heart. The world was wide. There was comfort and ease
in it scattered by others with a lavish hand. Surely, surely
misfortune could not press so sharply but that they could live!

She sat down with her mother, the difficulties of the future
seeming to approach with audible and ghastly steps.

"What do you suppose will become of us now?" repeated her mother,
who saw how her fanciful conception of this Cleveland home had
crumbled before her eyes.

"Why," said Jennie, who saw clearly and knew what could be done,
"it will be all right. I wouldn't worry about it. Something will
happen. We'll get something."

She realized, as she sat there, that fate had shifted the burden of
the situation to her. She must sacrifice herself; there was no other
way.

Bass met his father at the railway station in the morning. He
looked very pale, and seemed to have suffered a great deal. His cheeks
were slightly sunken and his bony profile appeared rather gaunt. His
hands were heavily bandaged, and altogether he presented such a
picture of distress that many stopped to look at him on the way home
from the station.

"By chops," he said to Bass, "that was a burn I got. I thought once
I couldn't stand the pain any longer. Such pain I had! Such pain! By
chops! I will never forget it."

He related just how the accident had occurred, and said that he did
not know whether he would ever be able to use his hands again. The
thumb on his right hand and the first two fingers on the left had been
burned to the bone. The latter had been amputated at the first
joint--the thumb he might save, but his hands