d; and I think there will be no
difficulty about our getting boarders enough to fill it. The income or
profit from these will enable us still to live comfortably, and keep
Edward and Ellen at school."

"It is hard," was the only remark Edith made to this.

"It is hard, my daughter; very hard! I have thought and thought about
it until my whole mind has been thrown into confusion. But it will not
do to think for ever; there must be action. Can I see want stealing in
upon my children, and sit and fold my hands supinely? No! And to you,
Edith, my oldest child, I look for aid and for counsel. Stand up
bravely by my side."

"And you are in earnest in all this?" said Edith, whose mind seemed
hardly able to realize the truth of their position. From her earliest
days, all the blessings that money could procure had been freely
scattered around her feet. As she grew up and advanced towards
womanhood, she had moved in the most fashionable circles, and there
acquired the habit of estimating people according to their wealth and
social standing, rather than by qualities of mind. In her view, it
appeared degrading in a woman to enter upon any kind of employment for
money; and with the keeper of a boarding-house, particularly, she had
always associated something low, vulgar, and ungenteel. At the thought
of her mother's engaging in such an occupation, when the suggestion was
made her mind instantly revolted. It appeared to her as if disgrace
would be the inevitable consequence.

"And you are in earnest in all this?" was an expression mingling her
clear conviction of the truth of what at first appeared so strange a
proposition, and her astonishment that the necessities of their
situation were such as to drive them to so humiliating a resource.

"Deeply in earnest," was the mother's reply.

"We are left alone in the world. He who cared for us and provided for
us so liberally has been taken away, and we have nowhere to look for
aid but to the resources that are in ourselves. These well applied,
will give us, I feel strongly assured, all that we need. The thing to
decide is, what we ought to do. If we choose aright, all will doubtless
come out right. To choose aright is, therefore, of the first
importance; and to do this, we must not suffer distorting suggestions
nor the appeals of a false pride to influence our minds in the least.
You are my oldest child, Edith; and, as such, I cannot but look upon
you as, to some extent, jointly wi