ld a delicate woman, unused to battle with
the world, do to keep the wolf from the door, let her courage be ever so
high?

"Will you promise me one thing?" said he, rising to prepare to go.
"Will you promise me to let me know how I can help you--when your plans
are made--either by advice or by money? I have a right. Your husband
was my relative as well as my friend."

"I promise faithfully you shall be the first person to whom I shall
apply in any strait," said Mrs Inglis, rising also, and offering her
hand.

"And what did your husband think of my proposal to take his son into my
office?"

"He thought well of it, as he wrote to you. But nothing has been said
about it yet. Can you give us a little time still? and I will write.
Believe me, I am very grateful for your kindness."

"If you will only give me an opportunity to be kind. Certainly, I can
wait. A month hence will be time enough to decide."

And then, when he had bidden them all good-bye, he went away.

"What did he mean by a situation, mamma?" asked Jem. "Is it for Davie?
Did papa know?"

But Mrs Inglis could enter into no particulars that night. She had
kept up to the end of her strength.

"I am very tired. I will tell you all about it another day. We must
have patience, and do nothing rashly. The way will open before us. I
am not afraid."

All the sadness of the next few weeks need not be told. They who have
suffered the same loss, and lived through the first sorrowful days of
bereavement, will know how it was with the mother and her children, and
they who have not could never be made to understand. Anxieties as to
the future could not but press on the heart of the mother, but they
could scarcely be said to deepen her sadness. She was not really
afraid. She knew they would not be forsaken--that their father's God
would have them in His keeping. But the thought of parting from them--
of sending any of them away--was very hard to bear.

If she could have seen it possible to stay in Gourlay, she would have
had fewer misgivings; but there was nothing in Gourlay she could do to
help to keep her children together. There was no room in so small a
place for any but the public schools, long established, and, at present,
prosperous; and teaching seemed the only thing in which she could engage
with even moderate hopes of success.

If "a multitude of counsellors" could have helped her, she would have
been helped. Every one had something t