"Mary," he said, wiping his eyes, " I've been
pastor of this church ever since I was eight-
and-twenty years of age, and from time to time
my income has been raised from one to two
hundred pounds a year. It has been a little
hard upon the members, perhaps, to raise the
latter sum, for they are not rich people, and our
dependence has been upon the pew-rents. But
for the last two years— since that time, Mary—
the congregation has been dwindling away before
my eyes. God knows I have done my best,
though His hand is heavy upon me. But it is
hinted to me quietly, not officially, that my
people wish me to give place to a younger and
more energetic man. They would give me a
pension of forty pounds a year, and obtain for
me the further sum of thirty pounds from a fund
for aged and disabled ministers, upon which
income they want me to retire."

"I wouldn't do it, sir," I answered, warmly;
"they cannot turn you out, and seventy pounds
a year would never keep you and the three
children respectably."

"Nay," said the minister, his pale face flushing
red, as if the fire scorched it, though there
was nothing but embers in the grate, " it has
been known for a Christian congregation to
starve out their pastor by cutting off his supplies.
I dare not refuse; my spirit is broken,
and shrinks from conflict. Moreover, Mary, I
am not solely dependent upon my ministerial
income. I have private property which brings me
in nearly fifty pounds a year."

"Three and four," I said, counting upon my
fingers, "are seven, and five makes twelve, and
a nought after twelve comes to one hundred and
twenty. We could manage with one hundred
and twenty pounds a year, sir."

"We were right, then," he said, with a glow
of pleasure;" Catherine and I did not deny
ourselves in vain. Our little ones will be
provided for."

I thought the little ones might have been big
ones by this time, and able to provide for
themselves; but I said nothing to damp his spirits.
However, in the course of a few months we
retired upon a pension, and as our income was a
good deal lessened, I gave the other servant
notice, and we settled down in a small but well-
looking house, a little back from the street, in as
respectable a part of the town as one could desire,
with the little shop of confectionery, which
my mother kept herself by, not more than a
stone's throw off.

Rebecca was quite a pattern of a child, the
very picture of her poor dead mother, with fine
little lines upon her forehead before she was
twelve years old, and a careful look in her face
as if she was saving up the very fun and mirth a
child ought to have. Never was any young creature
so strait-handed and sparing; even while she
was small enough to have a doll, she stinted and
contrived for it, like a full-grown mother. But
withal she was conscientious, and I used often
to think, as we sat in one of the back pews
of the chapel, and watched her all through the
service as serious and attentive as a grown-up
woman, what a lucky thing it was for her that
we were too poor and humble to be taken
much notice of, or she would have been encouraged
to be too pious for a child, and maybe
grow up into a hypocrite. But there was no
danger of all that with the other two, Katie and
Nellie; they were merry little romps, like other
children, and a very sore exercise of spirit were
they often and often to Rebecca.

At last I was obliged to run away from
them. I could not wait upon the customers
all that day, because my face was red
and swollen with crying. It was a long time
before I could reconcile myself to living in
another house; but after all, it was a good thing
for the children. Miss Rebecca, as was quite
natural at her age, took the management of the
house, and beat me hollow in making things go
a long way. It was a hard life for a young girl
never to know the pleasure of wasting a shilling;
for it is pleasant to have money to spend without
counting the pence, but Rebecca reckoned
up every farthing; and if Katie and Nellie had
any pocket-money, it was only like some clergyman's
daughters that Katie laughingly told me
about, who had a sovereign apiece on condition
that they neither changed it nor spent it.

It is not quite becoming in me to tell it; but
though I am a single woman, forty years of age,
I have had no less than ten offers of marriage:
some before I left Mr. Ambery's family, but
more since I have had a shop of my own. It
always looks suspicious to me, now, when an
elderly man begins to buy sugar-candy or gingerbread
frequently; and so I am put upon my
guard, and never taken by surprise, and hurried
into saying yes, as many poor women are. The
principal lawyer in the town was a bad, grasping
man, that had been the ruin of scores upon
scores of poor widows and orphans. To be
his clerk was no recommendation, and Joshua
Lamb, though he had a beautiful house, with
a drawing-room ten times better furnished than
Mr. Ambery's best parlour, and a carpet of fern-
leaves and oak upon the floor fit for any lady
in the town, was very attentive to me. It was the
carpet, and two or three other little things about
this house, that hindered me from giving Joshua
a short answer, and sending him about his
business; but though he had such a room of his
own to sit down in like any gentleman, he seemed
to like better my little quarried kitchen at the
back of the shop; and many an evening he spent .
there, talking away glibly, but never throwing
me off my guard, so as to get anything like a
"yes" out of me, for the very thought that he
was clerk to a bad lawyer made me keep my
wits about me as much as if he had been a
revolver, with a great number of barrels, ready
to go off at any minute.

It was five years since I left my children.
Katie was gone out as a governess; and Mr.
Ambery had sunk further into an infirm old
age, and left everything to Rebecca. She grew
more saving than ever; and though she gave
away a tenth of their income to charity and
religion, because she believed it to be right to