ot her to her feet; she leaned upon him, already somewhat comforted,
and, with his arm about her, he conducted her to the dining room and
seated her in one of the two kitchen chairs which had been placed at
the rough table. "There!" he said, "get over it!" Then he brought the
coffee-pot, some lumps of sugar in a tin pan, and, finding that all the
coffee-cups were broken, set water glasses upon the table, and poured
some of the pale coffee into them. By this time Fanny's spirits had
revived appreciably: she looked up with a plaintive eagerness. "I had
bought all my fall clothes, George," she said; "and I paid every bill I
owed. I don't owe a cent for clothes, George."

"That's good," he said wanly, and he had a moment of physical dizziness
that decided him to sit down quickly. For an instant it seemed to him
that he was not Fanny's nephew, but married to her. He passed his pale
hand over his paler forehead. "Well, let's see where we stand," he said
feebly. "Let's see if we can afford this place you've selected."

Fanny continued to brighten. "I'm sure it's the most practical plan we
could possibly have worked out, George--and it is a comfort to be among
nice people. I think we'll both enjoy it, because the truth is we've
been keeping too much to ourselves for a long while. It isn't good for
people."

"I was thinking about the money, Aunt Fanny. You see--"

"I'm sure we can manage it," she interrupted quickly. "There really
isn't a cheaper place in town that we could actually live in and be--"
Here she interrupted herself. "Oh! There's one great economy I forgot to
tell you, and it's especially an economy for you, because you're always
too generous about such things: they don't allow any tipping. They have
signs that prohibit it."

"That's good," he said grimly. "But the rent is thirty-six dollars a
month; the dinner is twenty-two and a half for each of us, and we've got
to have some provision for other food. We won't need any clothes for a
year, perhaps--"

"Oh, longer!" she exclaimed. "So you see--"

"I see that forty-five and thirty-six make eighty-one," he said. "At
the lowest, we need a hundred dollars a month--and I'm going to make
thirty-two."

"I thought of that, George," she said confidently, "and I'm sure it will
be all right. You'll be earning a great deal more than that very soon."

"I don't see any prospect of it--not till I'm admitted to the bar, and
that will be two years at the earliest."

Fann