llows."

"Perhaps so, George, though I do not know why it should be so, for the
more blessings one has the more reason for love and gratitude to the
giver. However, dear, I think we have both reason to be grateful now,
have we not?"

"That we have, mother. Only think of the difference since we said
good-by to each other last summer! Now here you are strong and well
again, and we are together and don't mean to be separated, and I have
got a place I like and have a good chance of getting on in, and we
have got a pretty little house all to ourselves, and you will be able
to live a little like a lady again,--I mean as you were accustomed
to,--and everything is so nice. Oh, mother, I am sure we have every
reason to be grateful!"

"We have indeed, George, and I even more than you, in the proofs you
have given me that my son is likely to turn out all that even I could
wish him."

Bill's hour was a very long one.

"You must not go out of an evening, Bill, to get out of our way," Mrs.
Andrews said when he returned, "else I shall think that I am in your
way. It was kind of you to think of it the first evening, and George
and I are glad to have had a long talk together, but in future I hope
you won't do it. You see there will be lots to do of an evening. There
will be your lessons and George's, for I hope now that he's settled he
will give up an hour or two every evening to study. Not Latin and
Greek, George," she added, smiling, seeing a look of something like
dismay in George's face, "that will be only a waste of time to you
now, but a study of such things as may be useful to you in your
present work and in your future life, and a steady course of reading
really good books by good authors. Then perhaps when you have both
done your work, you will take it by turns to read out loud while I do
my sewing. Then perhaps some day, who knows, if we get on very
flourishingly, after we have furnished our sitting room, we may be
able to indulge in the luxury of a piano again and have a little music
of an evening."

"That will be jolly, mother. Why, it will be really like old times,
when you used to sing to me!"

Mrs. Andrews' eyes filled with tears at the thought of the old times,
but she kept them back bravely, so as not to mar, even for a moment,
the happiness of this first evening. So they chatted till nine
o'clock, when they had supper. After it was over Mrs. Andrews left the
room for a minute and went upstairs and opened her