THREE months more elapsed.

Mrs.Marion was still an inmate of the family.

Up to this time, not a word had come from her husband, and she had not been able to pay Mrs.Darlington a single dollar.
Painfully did she feel her dependent situation, although she was treated with the utmost delicacy and consideration.

But all the widow's means were now exhausted in the payment of the second quarter's rent, and she found her weekly income reduced to thirty-five dollars, scarcely sufficient to meet the weekly expense for supplying the table, paying the servants, etc., leaving nothing for future rent bills, the cost of clothing, and education for the younger children.

With all this, Mrs.Darlington's duties had been growing daily more and more severe.