making my own dresses, though I know that I
shall never be so well dressed if I do. And about the cakes and
puddings--but, oh, there is enough pretending."

"It is difficult," said Lala Roy, "to bear adversity. But to be
temperate in prosperity is the height of wisdom."

"And now suppose, Iris," said Arnold "that the inheritance, instead
of being thousands a year, is only a few hundreds."

"Ah, then, Arnold, it will be ever so much simpler. We shall have
something to live upon until you begin to make money for us all."

"Yes; that is very simple. But suppose, again, that the inheritance is
nothing but a small sum of money."

"Why, then," said Iris, "we will give it all to grandfather, who will
pay off his creditor, and we will go on as if nothing had happened."

"Child!" said Mr. Emblem, "do you think that I would take your little
all?"

"And suppose, again," Arnold went on, "that the inheritance turns out
a delusion, and that there is nothing at all?"

"That cannot be supposed," said Mr. Emblem quickly; "that is absurd!"

"If it were," said Iris, "we shall only be, to-morrow, just exactly
what we are to-day. I am a teacher by correspondence, with five
pupils. Arnold is looking for art-work, which will pay; and between
us, my dear grandfather and Lala Roy, we are going to see that you
want nothing."

Always Lala Roy with her grandfather, as if their interests were
identical, and, indeed, he had lived so long with them that Iris could
not separate the two old men.

"We will all live together," Iris continued, "and when our fortune is
made we will all live in a palace. And now, grandfather, that we have
relieved our feelings, shall we have the story and the opening of the
papers in the safe?"

"Which will you have first?" Mr. Emblem asked again.

"Oh, the safe," said Arnold. "The story can wait. Let us examine the
contents of the safe."

"The story," said Mr. Emblem, "is nearly all told in your father's
letter, my dear. But there is a little that I would tell you first,
before I read that letter. You know, Iris, that I have never been
rich; my shop has kept me up till now, but I have never been able to
put by money. Well--my daughter Alice, your poor mother, my dear, who
was as good and clever as you are, was determined to earn her own
living, and so she went out as a governess. And one day she came home
with her husband; she had been married the day before, and she told me
they had very little money, an