lying there, and that Harry was in the crib beside
them. Their faces were red, and when he placed his hands upon their
foreheads, he found them hot with fever.

Hopelessly and silently the unhappy man turned from the bed, and
seated himself in a distant corner of the room. The death-mark was
upon his children--did he not recognize the fatal sign? He had
remained thus for only a minute or two, it seemed, when he felt a
hand upon his arm. He looked up; his wife stood beside him, and her
eyes rested steadily in his own. She pointed to the bed and motioned
him to return there. He obeyed with a shrinking heart. No words were
spoken until they were again close to the children; then the mother
said, in a calm, cold, stern voice--

"You murmured at the blessings God gave us, and he is withdrawing
them one by one. When these are gone, it will not cost us over five
hundred dollars to live, and then you can save five hundred a year.
Five hundred dollars for three precious children! But it's the price
you fixed upon them. Kate and Mary and Harry, dear, dear, dear ones!
not for millions of dollars would I part with you!"

A wild cry broke from the lips of the agonized mother, and she fell
forward upon the bed, with a frantic gesture.

The father felt like one freezing into ice. He could not speak nor
move; how long this state remained he knew not. A long, troubled,
dreary period seemed to pass, and then all was clear again. His wife
had risen from the bed, and left the chamber. Little Harry had been
removed from the crib, but Kate and Mary were still on the bed, with
every indication of a violent attack of the same disease that had
robbed them of their two oldest children. He was about leaving the
room for the purpose of inquiring whether a physician had been sent
for, when the door opened and the doctor came in with Mrs. Bancroft.
The stern expression that but lately rested upon the face of the
latter, had passed away. She looked kindly and tenderly into her
husband's face, and even leaned her head against him while the
physician proceeded to examine the children.

But little, if any encouragement was offered to the unhappy parents.
The incipiency of the disease gave small room for hope, it was so
like the usual precursor of the direful malady they feared.

Ten days of awful suspense and fear succeeded to this, and then the
worst came. Two happy voices that had, for so many years, echoed
through the familiar places of home,