ect, but the bundle did, and instantly set up a howl
that quite alarmed the father, and was sweetest music in the mother's
ears!

"Now tell me," said the little woman, after calming the baby and putting
it in a crib; "have you brought Miles Milton home all safe?"

"Yes, all right, Emmy."

"And is he married to that dear girl you wrote about?"

"No, not yet--of course."

"But are they engaged?"

"No. Miles told me that he would not presume to ask her while he had no
home to offer her."

"Pooh! He's a goose! He ought to make sure of _her_, and let the home
look after itself. He may lose her. Girls, you know, are changeable,
giddy things!"

"I know nothing of the sort, Emmy."

The young wife laughed, and--well, there is no need to say what else she
did.

About the same time, Mrs Milton and her son were seated in another
private room of the Institute finishing off that interchange of
confidences which had begun in such confusion. As it happened, they
were conversing on the same subject that occupied Emmy and her husband.

"You have acted rightly, Miles," said the mother, "for it would have
been unfair and selfish to have induced the poor girl to accept you
until you had some prospect of a home to give her. God will bless you
for doing _the right_, and trusting to Him. And now, dear boy, are you
prepared for bad news?"

"Prepared for anything!" answered Miles, pressing his mother's hand,
"but I hope the bad news does not affect you, mother."

"It does. Your dear father died a bankrupt. I shrank from telling you
this when you were wounded and ill. So you have to begin again the
battle of life with only one hand, my poor boy, for the annuity I have
of twenty pounds a year will not go far to keep us both."

Mrs Milton tried to speak lightly on this point, by way of breaking it
to her son, but she nearly broke down, for she had already begun to feel
the pinch of extreme poverty, and knew it to be very, very different
from what "well-off" people fancy. The grave manner in which her son
received this news filled her with anxiety.

"Mother," he said, after pondering in silence for a few moments, and
taking her hand in his while he slipped the handless arm round her
waist, "the news is indeed serious, but our Father whom you have trusted
so long will not fail us now. Happily it is my right hand that has been
spared, and wonders, you know, may be wrought with a strong right hand,
especially if assiste