Jared Pellet was a good actor, schooled in adversity; but on that day he was about worn out, and a less shrewd person than his wife would have seen that something was wrong. She noted it before he had been in long, and attributed it to the fact that they had not a penny in hand. He tried to laugh and be cheery, but his attempts were of so sorry a nature that Mrs Jared looked hard at him, when he seemed so guilty of aspect, that he was glad to call in the aid of a pocket-handkerchief, and make a feeble attempt at a sneeze. "You won't mind a makeshift dinner to-day?" said Patty, intent upon her task of preparing the repast. Needless question to one who had practised the art of making shift for so many years, and to whom a good dinner was an exception to the rule. "Been wanted while I was out?" said Jared, after declaring that he should enjoy the makeshift above all things. "Been wanted?" for it was a pleasant fiction with Jared that he did a large business in the musical instrument line, and that it was not safe for him to be away for a minute, though it was not once in a hundred absences that he was required; but the question sounded business-like, and he asked it regularly. The answer was just what he expected--in the negative; but it came in so dreary a tone that Jared stared. The reason was plain enough: Mrs Jared had caught his despondent complaint, and was rocking the baby over the fire as she counted up the holes that the expected cheque was to stop in connection with unpleasant demands for money, which she would have to answer meekly and with promises. The tears rose to her eyes as she thought of it all--tears reflected the next moment in those of Patty. "What would they say if they knew all?" groaned Jared to himself as he saw the tears. But he felt that he must stave it off a little longer, as he planted a child on either knee so as to have something to do, and then declared himself to be ravenous for want of food. Poor Patty finished her preparations. She brought out the scrap of cold mutton, and took up the potatoes and plain boiled rice-pudding, but her merry smile was gone. She too had her troubles, and it took but little to upset her. As she caught sight of her mother's sad face, she had hard work to keep her own tears back; for the chill that seemed to have come upon their home had struck to her heart, schooled as it had lately been to trouble. Volume 3, Chapter IX. EXPECTANCY.