! What put that into your head, child?" cried Polly.

"Why, Mr. Merton did; and I was thinking perhaps papa had got one down
there, and it kind of frightened me."

"Mr. Merton's was a bad, disgraceful failure, and I don't wonder he had
a fit. Ours is n't, and papa won't do anything of that sort, you may be
sure," said Fanny, with as proud an air as if "our failure" was rather
an honor than otherwise.

"Don't you think you and Maud had better go down and see him?" asked
Polly.

"Perhaps he would n't like it; and I don't know what to say, either,"
began Fan; but Polly said, eagerly, "I know he would like it. Never mind
what you say; just go, and show him that you don't doubt or blame him
for this, but love him all the more, and are ready and glad to help him
bear the trouble."

"I 'm going, I ain't afraid; I 'll just hug him, and say I 'm ever so
glad we are going to the little house," cried Maud, scrambling off the
bed, and running down stairs.

"Come with me, Polly, and tell me what to do," said Fanny, drawing her
friend after her.

"You 'll know what to do when you see him, better than I can tell you,"
answered Polly, readily yielding, for she knew they considered her
"quite one of the family," as Tom said.

At the study door they found Maud, whose courage had given out, for Mr.
Merton's fit rather haunted her. Polly opened the door; and the minute
Fanny saw her father, she did know what to do. The fire was low, the gas
dim, and Mr. Shaw was sitting in his easy-chair, his gray head in both
his hands, looking lonely, old, and bowed down with care. Fanny gave
Polly one look, then went and took the gray head in both her arms,
saying, with a tender quiver in her voice, "Father dear, we 've come to
help you bear it."

Mr. Shaw looked up, and seeing in his daughter's face something that
never had been there before, put his arm about her, and leaned his
tired head against her, as if, when least expected, he had found the
consolation he most needed. In that minute, Fanny felt, with mingled joy
and self-reproach, what a daughter might be to her father; and Polly,
thinking of feeble, selfish Mrs. Shaw, asleep up stairs, saw with
sudden clearness what a wife should be to her husband, a helpmeet, not
a burden. Touched by these unusual demonstrations, Maud crept quietly
to her father's knee, and whispered, with a great tear shining on her
little pug nose, "Papa, we don't mind it much, and I 'm going to help
Fan keep hou