Yet her pictures of that ideal home they were to have were very alluring to him too, and this particular morning, when their boarding-house life had lasted just one year, her words had taken deeper hold than ever before. That evening he returned with a very mysterious look on his face. “What is the matter, Harry?” asked Molly, merrily. “What plot are you brewing?” “How would you like to pass a winter in the country?” “I shouldn’t mind. Why do you ask?” “Because we can put your longed-for experiment to the test. John Winfield is going to take his wife to Europe on the first of September, and wants to let his cottage furnished for the bare rent he pays: $20 per month.” “Oh, Harry! and we will take it? It is such a cozy little place.” “Yes, dear, I think we may venture on this experiment. If it happens that we tire of housekeeping in a few months, we shall not be burdened with furniture that we don’t want, and if you are as happy as you think, we can take a little house and furnish it.” Mrs. Bishop looked the joy she felt, and all that evening they were discussing plans and prospects. Many of my readers will wonder, perhaps, why this young couple looked upon beginning housekeeping on Harry’s income as such a tremendous experiment, when so many live and bring up families on much less. But there was no disguising the fact that Harry’s bringing-up in his father’s luxurious house had made him fastidious, and he shrank from the too frugal table that he associated with such means, and, even more, the necessity of foregoing in his own house the refinement he had been accustomed to. This lack being in the house of another person irked him less. Molly’s dread was mixed with a trembling desire to show her husband what sort of a wife he had married. “I feel just a doll while boarding, with nothing to think of but my clothes. You don’t know whether I am fit to be a helpmeet or not,” she had often said, and he had replied, “My darling, I take it all on faith; you are too good for me, even if you could not sew on a button.” But Molly’s trembling did not come from fear of facing life in a cottage. She knew herself, but she did think that Harry might grow to repent the step. She feared also the criticism of his mother, ever watchful for a trip on her part. Ah! what agony it would be to her, if her husband should ever regret the sacrifice he had made! But from such thoughts as these, that kept her awake far into the night while Harry slept soundly at her side, she would turn to a vision of herself as a triumphant little matron. “I cannot fail! My time and ingenuity will certainly supply the deficiency of money.” Molly had kept house for an invalid mother, who, for economy’s sake, had lived in a small French town, and after her mother’s death she had found herself forced to earn her living as governess, for her mother’s income died with her.