port his family
comfortably. But, alas! how much often depends upon the life and efforts
of one person! An attack of pneumonia, the result of a neglected cold,
carried him out of the world in three days. There had been only time to
attend to his religious duties, and no opportunity to provide for the
dear ones he was about to leave, even if any provision had been possible.
When the income derived from the father's daily labor ceased, they found
themselves suddenly plunged into comparative poverty. His life-insurance
policy had not been kept up; the mortgage on the pretty home had never
been paid off, and was now foreclosed. The best of the furniture was
sold to pay current expenses, and the widow removed with her children to
the third floor of a cheap apartment house,--one of those showy,
aggressively genteel structures so often seen in our Eastern cities, with
walls of questionable safety and defective drainage and ventilation.

Mrs. Farrell was now obliged to dismiss her maid-of-all-work, and attend
to the household duties herself. This was a hardship, for she was not a
strong woman; but she did not complain. Bernard, fortunately, had taken
two years of the commercial course at St. Stanislaus' College, and was
therefore in a measure fitted for practical affairs. He obtained a place
as clerk in the law office of Crosswell & Wright. As he tried to keep
his mind on his duties, and was willing and industrious, his employers
were well pleased with him, and he had been several times advanced. But
the means of the family grew more and more straitened. The following
year the rent of the flat was found to be higher than they could afford.
They sought other quarters, and settled at last, just as winter was
approaching, in the little house where we have discovered them, in a
humble neighborhood and unpaved streets, with no pretensions
whatever,--in fact, it did not appear to have even the ambition to be
regarded as a street at all.

The young people took possession of the new dwelling in high glee. They
did not see the drawbacks to comfort which their mother could have
pointed out; did not notice how much the house needed painting and
papering, how decidedly out of repair it was. Only too glad of their
satisfaction, she refrained from comment, tried to make the best of
everything, and succeeded in having a cosey home for them, despite all
difficulties. For there was not a room of the small house into which at
lea