nses?"

"I am ashamed to say."

"Fifteen hundred dollars?"

"They have never fallen below that since we were married, and, for the
last three years, have reached the sum of two thousand dollars. This
year they will even exceed that."

Wilkinson shook his head.

"Too much! too much!"

"I know it is. A man in my circumstances has no right to expend even
half that sum. Why, five hundred dollars a year less in our expenses
since we were married would have left me a capital of five thousand
dollars in my business."

"And placed you now on the sure road to fortune."

"Undoubtedly."

"Take my advice, and give to Cara a full statement of your affairs. Do
it at once--this very day. It has been put off too long already. Let
there be no reserve--no holding back--no concealment. Do it calmly,
mildly, yet earnestly, and my word for it, she will join you, heart and
hand, in any measure of reform and safety that you may propose. She
were less than a woman, a wife, and a mother, not to do so. You wrong
her by doubt."

"Perhaps I do," said Ellis in reply. "Perhaps I have never managed her
rightly. I know that I am quick to get out of patience with her, if she
oppose my wishes too strongly. But I will try and overcome this. There
is too much at stake just now."

The two men parted. Henry Ellis pondered all day over the present state
of his affairs, and the absolute necessity there was for a reduction of
his expenses. The house in which he lived cost four hundred and fifty
dollars a year. Two hundred dollars could easily be saved, he thought,
by taking a smaller house, where, if they were only willing to think
so, they might be just as comfortable as they now were. Beyond this
reduction in rent, Ellis did not see clearly how to proceed. The rest
would have mainly to depend upon his wife, who had almost the entire
charge of the home department, including the expenditures made on
account thereof.

The earnestness with which Ellis pondered these things lifted his
thoughts so much above the sensual plane where they too often rested,
that he felt not the desire for stimulating drink returning at certain
hours, but passed through the whole of the afternoon without either
thinking of or tasting his usual glass of brandy and water. On coming
home to his family in the evening, his mind was as clear as a bell.
This, unhappily, was not always the case.

And now for the task of making Cara comprehend the real state of his
affairs;