lessened her father’s income, and reduced the family from the comfortable position of doing just about as their rather simple inclinations led them, to the need of carefully counting the smaller expenses that so quickly absorb money,—no marked change, only they did not travel quite as much, nor keep a horse and carriage, nor have quite so many gowns, while those they had they made themselves. The more than liberal sum that Mr. Allen was paying them for the board and care of Fred was far more helpful than he had realized when he had made them the offer, although the money bargain had been by no means a determining cause in their taking Fred into their home. And, this year, Bess had felt that it would be more than ever impossible for her to go away to leave Fred, both on her mother’s account and the boy’s own, for the child clung to her more and more closely, with a devotion touching to see.
But Alice and Jack had smoothed away every difficulty, and Bess, with her conscience at rest, could now accept their threefold invitation. Now there was a prospect of change,
