my poor boy," he said; "ask help from
Him."

For an hour Frank lay sobbing on the sofa, and then, remembering the
doctor's last words, he knelt beside it and prayed for strength.

A week had passed. The blinds were up again. Mrs. Hargate had been laid
in her last home, and Frank was sitting alone again in the little parlor
thinking over what had best be done. The outlook was a dark one, enough
to shake the courage of one much older than Frank. His mother's pension,
he knew, died with her. He had, on the doctor's advice, written to
the War Office on the day following his mother's death, to inform the
authorities of the circumstances, and to ask if any pension could
be granted to his sister. The reply had arrived that morning and had
relieved him of the greatest of his cares. It stated that as he was
now just fifteen years old he was not eligible for a pension, but that
twenty-five pounds a year would be paid to his sister until she married
or attained the age of twenty-one.

He had spoken to the doctor that morning, and the latter said that he
knew a lady who kept a small school, and who would, he doubted not, be
willing to receive Lucy and to board and clothe her for that sum. She
was a very kind and motherly person, and he was sure that Lucy would be
most kindly treated and cared for by her. It was then of his own future
only that Frank had to think. There were but a few pounds in the house,
but the letter from the War Office inclosed a check for twenty pounds,
as his mother's quarterly pension was just due. The furniture of the
little house would fetch but a small sum, not more, Frank thought, than
thirty or forty pounds. There were a few debts to pay, and after all was
settled up there would remain about fifty pounds. Of this he determined
to place half in the doctor's hands for the use of Lucy.

"She will want," he said to himself, "a little pocket money. It is hard
on a girl having no money to spend of her own. Then, as she gets on, she
may need lessons in something or other. Besides, half the money rightly
belongs to her, The question is, What am I to do?"

CHAPTER V: ALONE IN THE WORLD

"What am I to do?"

A difficult question indeed, for a boy of fifteen, with but twenty-five
pounds, and without a friend in the world. Was he, indeed, without a
friend? he asked himself. There was Dr. Parker. Should he apply to him?
But the doctor had started for a trip on the Continent the day after
the school had