eving and pining and
homesick at the Little Sisters. She is trying to hide it, but she is
grieving, I know. She broke down and cried to-day when I went to see
her,--cried real sobs and tears. And--and" Dan went on with breathless
haste, "Peter Patterson, that keeps the meatshop at our old corner, has
offered me five dollars a week to come and work for him. To give up Saint
Andrew's--and--and--all it means, Father Mack, and work for him."

VI.--FATHER MACK.

"Give up Saint Andrew's!" repeated Father Mack in a low, startled voice.
"You, Dan! Give up! Oh, no, my boy,--no!"

"Aunt Winnie will die if I don't," blurted out Dan, despairingly. "Pete
Patterson says so. And I can take her home and give her back her little
rooms over Mulligans', and the blue teapot and Tabby, and everything she
loves. And Pete says I can work up to be his partner."

"His partner,--his partner! In what?" asked Father Mack, anxiously.

"Meat business," answered Dan. "He's made money, and he's going in for it
big,--corning, smoking, sausage, everything. I--I could take care of Aunt
Winnie fine."

"Meat business, sausage? I don't think I understand," said Father Mack, in
bewilderment. "Sit down here, Dan, and tell me all this over again."

Dan took his seat on a broken slab that had been a gravestone before the
old college cemetery had been condemned and removed beyond the limits of
the growing city. It was a very old slab, bearing the Latin title of some
Brother or Father who had died fifty years ago. The sunset fell through a
gap in the pines that showed the western sky, with its open gates, their
pillars of cloud and fire all aglow.

"Tell me slowly, calmly, Dan. My ears are growing dull."

And Dan told his story again, more clearly and less impetuously; while
Father Mack listened, his bent head haloed by the setting sun.

"I can't let Aunt Winnie die," concluded Dan. "You see, I have to think of
Aunt Winnie, Father."

"Yes, I see,--I see, my boy," was the low answer. "And it is only of Aunt
Winnie you are thinking, Dan?"

"Only of Aunt Winnie," replied Dan, emphatically. "You don't suppose
anything else would count against Saint Andrew's, Father. I'd work, I'd
starve, I'd die, I believe, rather than give up my chance here?"

"Yes, yes, it's hard lines sometimes," said Father Mack. "You may find it
even harder as the years go by, Dan. I heard about the trouble
yesterday."

"Oh, did you, Father?" said Dan, somewhat abashed.