ung couple
to go back to Leauvite for the winter.

"Never mind, Betty, dear," Martha had encouraged her. "We'll return in
the spring and start again, and you can take the course just the
same."

But now a general financial stringency prevailed all over the country.
"It always seems, when there's a 'financial stringency,' that
portraits and paintings are the things people economize on first of
all," said Betty.

"Naturally," said Mary Ballard. "When people need food and clothing--they
want them, and not pictures. We'll just have to wait, dear."

"Yes, we'll have to wait, Mary." Saucy Betty had a way of calling her
mother "Mary." "Your dress is shabby, and you need a new bonnet; I
noticed it in church,--you'd never speak of that, though. You'd wear
your winter's bonnet all summer."

Yes, Betty must see to it, even if it took every bit of the fund, that
mother and Janey were suitably dressed. "Never mind, Mary, I'll catch
up some day. You needn't look sorry. I'm all right about my own
clothes, for Martha gave me a rose for my hat, and the new ribbons
make it so pretty,--and my green parasol is as good as new for all
I've had it three years, and--"

Betty stopped abruptly. Three years!--was it so long since that
parasol was new--and she was so happy--and Richard came home--? The
family were seated on the piazza as they were wont to be in the
evening, and Betty walked quietly into the house, and up to her room.

Bertrand Ballard sighed, and his wife reached out and took his hand in
hers. "She's never been the same since," he said.

"Her character has deepened and she's fine and sweet--"

"Yes, yes. I have three hundred dollars owing me for the Delong
portrait. If I had it, she should have her course. I'll make another
effort to collect it."

"I would, Bertrand."

Julien Thurbyfil and his wife walked down the flower-bordered path
side by side to the gate and stood leaning over it in silence.
Practical Martha was the first to break it.

"There will be just as much need for preparatory schools now as there
was before the fire, Julien."

"Yes, dear, yes."

"And, meanwhile, we are glad of this sweet haven to come to, aren't
we? And it won't be long before things are so you can begin again."

"Yes, dear, and then we'll make it up to Betty, won't we?"

But Julien was distraught and somber, in spite of brave words. He had
not inherited Mary Ballard's way of looking at things, nor his
father-in-law's buoyancy.