potato."

"Haven't you any tea, aunt--for yourself, I mean?" Robert added quickly.
"I don't care for it, but I know you do."

"I wish I had some. Tea always goes to the right spot," said Mrs.
Trafton; "but I couldn't find a single leaf."

"What a pity!" said Robert regretfully.

"Yes," sighed Mrs. Trafton; "we have to do without almost everything. It
might be so different if Mr. Trafton wouldn't drink."

"Did he always drink?"

"He's drank, more or less, for ten years, but the habit seems to have
grown upon him. Till five years ago two-thirds of his earnings came to
me to spend for the house, but now I don't average a dollar a week."

"It's too bad, Aunt Jane!" said Robert energetically.

"So it is, but it does no good to say so. It won't mend matters."

"I wish I was a man."

"I am glad you are not, Robert."

"Why are you glad that I am a boy?" asked Robert in surprise.

"Because when you are a man you won't stay here. You will go out into
the world to better yourself, and I shan't blame you. Then I shall be
left alone with your uncle, and Heaven only knows how I shall get along.
I shall starve very likely."

Robert pushed back his chair from the table and looked straight at his
aunt.

"Do you think. Aunt Jane," he demanded indignantly, "that I will desert
you and leave you to shift for yourself?"

"I said, Robert, that I shouldn't blame you if you did. There isn't much
to stay here for."

"I am sorry you have such a poor opinion of me, Aunt Jane," said the boy
gravely. "I am not quite so selfish as all that. I certainly should like
to go out into the world, but I won't go unless I can leave you
comfortable."

"I should miss you, Robert, I can't tell how much, but I don't want to
tie you down here when you can do better. There isn't much for me to
live for--I'm an old woman already--but better times may be in store for
you."

"You are not an old woman, Aunt Jane. You are not more than fifty."

"I am just fifty, Robert, but I feel sometimes as if I were seventy."

"Do you know, Aunt Jane, I sometimes think that brighter days are coming
to both of us? Sometimes, when I sit out there on the cliff and look out
to sea, I almost fancy I can see a ship coming in laden with good things
for us."

Mrs. Trafton smiled faintly.

"I have waited a long time for my ship to come in, Robert," she said.
"I've waited year after year, but it hasn't come yet."

"It may come for all that."

"You are young an