of how Tom--I mean my poor husband--and I came here when
we were first married. Tom had the land, you see, and he'd built a
little cabin for us with his own hands."

"And all the farm grew from that?"

"Yes. We worked hard, you see, and the children came, but we had a
better place for each one to be born in, Miss Mercer--we really did! It
was our place. We've earned it all, with the help from the place itself,
and before the fire--"

She broke down then, and for a moment she couldn't go on.

"Of course you love it!" said Eleanor, heartily. "And I don't think it
would be very good news for you to know that you had a chance to go
somewhere else and make a fresh start, though I could have managed that
for you."

"I'd be grateful, though, Miss Mercer," said Mrs. Pratt. "I don't want
you to think I wouldn't. It'll be a wrench, though--I'm not saying it
wouldn't. When you've lived anywhere as long as I've lived here, and
seen all the changes, and had your children born in it, and--"

"I know--I know," interrupted Eleanor, sympathetically. "And I could see
how much you loved the place. So I never had any idea at all of
suggesting anything that would take you away."

"Do you really think we can get a new start here?" asked Mrs. Pratt,
looking up hopefully.

"I don't only believe it, I know it, Mrs. Pratt," said Eleanor,
enthusiastically. "And what's more, you're going to be happier and more
prosperous than you ever were before the fire. Not just at first,
perhaps, but you're going to see the way clear ahead, and it won't be
long before you'll be doing so well that you'll be able to let my friend
Tom here go to college."

Mrs. Pratt's face fell. It seemed to her that Eleanor was promising too
much.

"I don't see how that could be," she said. "Why, his paw and I used to
talk that over. We wanted him to have a fine education, but we didn't
see how we could manage it, even when his paw was alive."

"Well, you listen to me, and see if you don't think there's a good
chance of it, anyhow," said Eleanor. "In the first place, none of the
people in Cranford knew that you'd had all this trouble. It was just as
I thought. Their own danger had been so great that they simply hadn't
had time to think of anything else. They were shocked and sorry when I
told them."

"There's a lot of good, kind people there," said Mrs. Pratt, brightening
again. "I'm sure I didn't think anything of their not having come out
here to see how we we