On an investigation of his affairs, it was found that after the settling of the estate very little would remain for Stephen and his mother.

The mortgage on the old Jacobs house was the greater part of their property.

Very reluctantly Stephen decided that their wisest--in fact, their only--course was to move into this house to live.

Many and many a time he had walked past the old house, and thought, as he looked at it, what a bare, staring, hopeless, joyless-looking old house it was.

It had originally been a small, square house.