is amazement, he
found himself confiding his own troubles in return, and the ready
sympathy accorded to them seemed the sweetest thing in the world. A
month after their first meeting he asked her to be his wife, explaining
honestly his financial position, and the uncertainty of improvement in
the future.

"But you will help me!" he said. "The money will go twice as far when
you hold the purse!"

And Mrs Farrell agreed with ardour, unabashed by previous failures.
She went to her new home full of love and gratitude, and, let it be said
at once, never had cause to regret the step in after years.

Ernest Connor was a devoted husband, and a most kindly father to the two
little girls; but life was not easy. It was a constant strain to make
ends meet, and as Trix, and Betty, and Drummond, and Ransome, and Bruce
came in quick succession to fill the nursery, the strain grew even more
and more acute.

The elder girls had been educated at a neighbouring high school, but
left as soon as they were seventeen, and after that there was no money
to spare for music and painting lessons, such as most girls continue as
an interest and occupation long after schooldays are over.

Ruth and Mollie were kept busy teaching the babies and making clothes
for the family--cutting down Trix's dress to do duty for Betty;
laboriously planning little pairs of knickers out of trousers worn at
the knees; patching, darning, covering-up, hiding over, turning and
twisting; making up something out of nothing, with the lordly sum of
fifteen pounds a year each for dress and pocket-money alike. They had
never known the luxury, dear to girlish hearts, of choosing a garment
simply because it was pretty or becoming. Dark, useful remnants were
their lot; sailor-hats in summer, cloth toques in winter; stout, useful
boots, and dogskin gloves which stood a year's hard wear.

Many a time over had Mollie stretched forth hands and feet for her
sister's inspection, quoting derisively--

"`Her thickly--made country shoes could not conceal the slender contour
of her ankles; her rough gloves served only to reveal the patrician
beauty of her hands.' Look at that, my love--there's contour for you!
There's patrician beauty! What rubbish those books do talk, to be
sure!"

Many a time had the girls groaned together over their impecuniosity, and
vaguely vowed to "do something" to remedy their condition, until at last
Ruth's unrest had reached the point of action, a