he heel, pattering on the worn oil-cloth in the entry as she shambled
toward the front door. Hope opened it. The morning was pleasant, though
cool, and the air refreshing after the odor of mingled grease and stale
tobacco-smoke which filled the house.

As they passed out, Fanny quietly sat down upon the step, leaned her chin
upon one hand, and looked up and down the street, which, it seemed to
Hope, offered a prospect that would hardly enliven her mind. There was
something more touching to Hope in this dull apathy than in the most
positive grief.

"Fanny Newt!" she said to her, suddenly.

Fanny lifted her lazy eyes.

"If I can do nothing for your brother, can I do nothing for you? You will
rust out, Fanny, if you don't take care."

Fanny smiled languidly.

"What if I do?" she answered.

Thereupon Hope sat down by her, and told her just what she meant, and
what she hoped, and what she would do if she would let her. And the eager
young woman drew such pleasant pictures of what was yet possible to
Fanny, although she was the wife of Alfred Dinks, that, as if the
long-accumulating dust and ashes were blown away from her soul, and it
began to kindle again in a friendly breath, Fanny felt herself moved and
interested. She smiled, looked grave, and finally laid her head upon
Hope's shoulder and cried good, honest tears of utter weariness and
regret.

"And now," said Hope, "will you help me about Abel?"

"I really don't see that you can do any thing," said Fanny, "nor any body
else. Perhaps he'll get a new start in Congress, though I don't know any
thing about it."

Hope Wayne shook her head thoughtfully.

"No," she said, "I see no way. I can only be ready to befriend him if the
chance offers."

They said no more of him then, but Hope persuaded Fanny to come to
Lawrence Newt's Christmas dinner, to which they had all been bidden.
"And I will make him understand about it," she said, as she went down
the steps.

Mrs. Dinks sat upon the door-step for some time. There was nobody to see
her whom she knew, and if there had been she would not have cared. She
did not know how long she had been sitting there, for she was thinking of
other things, but she was roused by hearing her husband's voice:

"Well, by G----! that's a G---- d---- pretty business--squatting on a
door-step like a servant girl! Come in, I tell you, and shut the door."

From long habit Fanny did not pay the least attention to this order. But
after so