“You will all come to us, dear Agnes, and we will be as one family,” said my kind father, as they at last ended the careful examination of the affairs. “You and Enna have always been as sisters, my poor dead wife loved your mother as a sister. The income my profession yields you and Enna can manage so as to supply us all. We will live plainly but happily, I know. You are both sufficiently well informed to educate the girls, and Adel will soon be old enough to assist you. Horace and Frank will in a few years be able to help themselves, and supply my place when I grow too old to fill the purse.” Agnes sat by the table quietly gazing as upon vacancy, when my dear, good father commenced his kind plan, and as he proceeded her dark eyes beamed with childlike fondness on the good old man. “Surely Heaven will bless you and yours, dear Mr. Duval, for being thus kind to the widowed and fatherless,” she exclaimed, as he concluded. “But I must not accept your kind offer. Your plan, however, has confirmed me in the scheme I have been forming for some days past. If I am sufficiently well fitted to take charge of my sisters’ education, why not of others? If you will aid me I will open a school.” The thought was a good one, and my father, finding Agnes steady in her determination yielded, and used every endeavor to forward her in her project. The creditors had refused to accept the costly wardrobe and magnificent jewels belonging to Mrs. Lincoln and Agnes. These were disposed of, and the money arising from their sale was appropriated by Agnes to the furnishing of her new establishment. “I take this money only as a loan,” said Agnes to my father. “If I am spared, and have health and strength, at some future time it shall be returned. I never shall feel light-hearted until my father’s liabilities are all satisfied.”