"We always did tell our
secrets to one another, but all this terrible trouble seems to have put
childish things away. Have you really a secret, George, to tell me?"

"I don't know how I can tell it to you," he replied; his lips
quivered--he looked down. Effie clasped his arm affectionately.

"You know I would do anything for you," she said.

"Yes; I know you are the best of girls, and you're awfully pretty, too.
I know Fred Lawson will think so when he sees you."

"Who is he?"

"A friend of mine--a right good fellow--he is a medical student at St.
Joseph's Hospital. I have often met him, and he has talked to me about
his own sisters, and one day I showed him your photograph, and he said
what a pretty girl you were. Somehow, Effie, I never thought of you as
pretty until Fred said so. I suppose fellows don't think how their
sisters look, although they love them very dearly; but when Fred said
it, it opened my eyes. Dear, dear, why am I talking like this, when time
is so precious, and I--Effie, when I came down that day to see my
father, I was in trouble--great trouble; the shock of seeing him seemed
to banish it from my mind, but it cannot be banished--it cannot be
banished, Effie, and I have no one to confide in now but you."

"You must tell me of course," said Effie; she felt herself turning pale.
She could not imagine what George's trouble was. The night was dusk; she
raised her eyes to her brother's face--he avoided meeting them. He had a
stick in his hand, and he began to poke holes in the gravel.

"How much money have we got to live on?" he asked abruptly.

"How much money have we to live on?" repeated Effie. "I believe, when
all is collected, that there will be something like a hundred a year for
mother and Agnes and Katie and the two little children. Of course I am
going to support myself _somehow_, and you are naturally off our hands."

"It's awful," said George; "it's awful to be so starvingly poor as that.
Why, I get a hundred a year now; fancy five people living on a sum on
which I never can make both ends meet!"

"What is the matter with you, George? How queerly you speak! You knew we
should be awfully poor when father died. You are going to pay for your
board, are you not, when you come to us, and that will be a great help."

"Yes, of course; I vow and declare that I'll give mother at least half
of what I earn."

"Well, that will be fifty pounds--a great help. My idea for myself
is--but----" Ef