il I convince the children I mean what I say, they give me the
benefit of the doubt. The Baer place is so large that Mrs. Baer never
knows where disobedience may occur, and that she may be prepared she
keeps one of Mr. Baer's old slippers on the front porch, one in the
carriage-house, one in the arbor, one in the nursery, and one under the
rose hedge at the front gate. She showed me all these haunts, and told
me to make myself thoroughly at home. I felt tempted to-day, but I
resisted."

"You are working too hard, Polly. I propose we do something about Mrs.
Chadwick. You are bearing all the brunt of other people's faults and
blunders."

"But, Edgar, everything is so mixed: Mrs. Chadwick's year of lease is
n't over; I suppose she cannot be turned out by main force, and if we
should ask her to leave the house it might go unrented for a month or
two, and the loss of that money might be as much as the loss of ten or
fifteen dollars a month for the rest of the year. I could complain of
her to Dr. George, but there again I am in trouble. If he knew that we
are in difficulties, he would offer to lend us money in an instant, and
that would make mamma ill, I am sure; for we are under all sorts of
obligations to him now, for kindnesses that can never be repaid. Then,
too, he advised us not to let Mrs. Chadwick have the house. He said
that she had n't energy enough to succeed; but mamma was so sorry for
her, and so determined to give her a chance, that she persisted in
letting her have it. We shall have to find a cheaper flat, by and by,
for I 've tried every other method of economizing, for fear of making
mamma worse with the commotion of moving."

CHAPTER X.

EDGAR GOES TO CONFESSION.

"I 'm afraid I make it harder, Polly, and you and your mother must be
frank with me, and turn me out of the Garden of Eden the first moment I
become a nuisance. Will you promise?"

"You are a help to us, Edgar; we told you so the other night. We could
n't have Yung Lee unless you lived with us, and I could n't earn any
money if I had to do all the housework."

"I 'd like to be a help, but I 'm so helpless!"

"We are all poor together just now, and that makes it easier."

"I am worse than poor!" Edgar declared.

"What can be worse than being poor?" asked Polly, with a sigh drawn
from the depths of her boots.

"To be in debt," said Edgar, who had not the slightest intention of
making this remark when he opened his lips