We are paupers! Paupers, and I am so miserable.

The weddings will never come off; all that is past; we could not even buy the dentist, now." A bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: "I BEGGED you to sell, but you--" He did not say it; he had not the heart to add a hurt to that broken and repentant spirit.

A nobler thought came to him and he said: "Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never invested a penny of my uncle's bequest, but only its unmaterialized future; what we have lost was only the incremented harvest from that future by your incomparable financial judgment and sagacity.

Cheer up, banish these griefs; we still have the thirty thousand untouched; and with the experience which you have acquired, think what you will be able to do with it in a couple years! The marriages are not off, they are only postponed." These are blessed words.

Aleck saw how true they were, and their influence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and her great spirit rose to its full stature again.