ill be bankrupt if you go on as you are!"

"Oh no!" Bethel laughed. "Providence looks after the dreamers.
Something always happens--I know something will happen now. We are on
the edge of some good fortune. I can feel it."

The man was incorrigible--there was no doubt of it--but Harry had
something further to say.

"Well, I want you to let me take a deeper interest in your affairs.
May I ask your daughter to marry me?"

"What? Mary?" Bethel stopped and shouted--"Why! That's splendid! Of
course, that's what Providence has been intending all this time. The
very thing, my dear fellow----" and he put his arm on Harry's
shoulder--"there's no one I'd rather give my girl to. But it's nothing
to do with me, really. She'll know her mind and tell you what she
feels about it. Dear me! Just to think of it!"

He broke out into continuous chuckles all the way home, and seemed to
regard the whole affair as a great joke. Harry left him shouting at
the moon. He had scarcely meant to speak of it so soon, but the
thought of her struggle and the knowledge of her father's utter
indifference decided matters. He went back to the house, determining
on an interview in the morning.

Mary meanwhile had been spending an evening that was anything but
pleasant--she had been going through her accounts and was horrified at
what she saw. They were badly overdrawn, most of the shops had refused
them further credit, and the little income that came to them could not
hope to cover one-half of their expenses. What was to be done? Ruin
and disgrace stared them in the face. They might borrow, but there was
no one to whom she could go. They must, of course, give up their
little house and go into rooms, but that would make very little
difference. She looked at it from every point of view and could think
of no easier alternative. She puzzled until her head ached, and the
room, misty with figures, seemed to swim round her. She felt cruelly
lonely, and her whole soul cried out for Harry--he would help her, he
would tell her what to do. She knew now that she loved him with all
the strength that was in her, that she had always loved him, from the
first moment that she had known him. She remembered her promise to him
that she would come and ask for his help if she really needed it--well,
perhaps she would, in the end, but now, at least, she must fight it out
alone. The first obvious thing was that her parents must know; that
they woul