done.

This change in his circumstances enabled Wallace to send for his mother
and to provide a comfortable little home for her.

He was very ambitious; every spare moment was spent in study, while he
also attended an evening school for drawing, where he could receive
instruction in his beloved architecture.

Thus, step by step, he went steadily on, perfecting himself in both his
trade and his profession until, at the opening of our story, six years
after leaving his native city, Boston, we find him and his mother still
residents of Cincinnati, and the young man in a fair way to realize the
one grand object of his life.

Already he had executed a number of plans for buildings, which had been
approved, accepted, and fairly well paid for, while he had applied for,
and hoped to obtain, a lucrative position in the office of an eminent
architect, at the beginning of the new year.

His accident had interrupted his business for several weeks, but he knew
that he should lose nothing pecuniarily, for the company that controlled
the incline-plane railway had agreed to meet all the expenses of his
illness, and pay him a goodly sum besides; so his enforced idleness had
not tried his patience as severely as it would have otherwise done.

Indeed, he had not been idle, for he had devoted a good deal of time,
after he was able to be about, to the study of his beloved art. His
right hand, being only slightly injured he could use quite freely, and
he executed several designs which he was sure would be useful to him in
the future.

His mother's sudden death, however, was a blow which almost crushed him.
He had never thought that she could die at least for long years for she
had apparently been in the enjoyment of perfect health.

They were sitting together one evening, and had been unusually social
and merry, when Mrs. Richardson suddenly broke off in the middle of a
sentence, leaned back in her chair as if faint, and before Wallace could
reach her side, her spirit was gone.

Wallace would not believe that she was dead until the hastily summoned
physician declared that life was entirely extinct and then the heavily
afflicted son felt as if his burden were greater than he could bear.

He did not look upon that loved face again until the hour of the
funeral, when he went alone into their pretty parlor to take his last
farewell, and found Violet there before him.

Her presence there had been "inexpressibly comforting" to him as