"Ah, yes!" added Helen with crimson cheeks, and eyes fairly blazing with indignation. "And when the poor couple were found dead in their beds, and the jury had pronounced a verdict of 'Death from Starvation,' what an eloquent plea Monson P. Tracy would have made for the poor in our garrets. How touchingly he would have described their destitution and want, their struggles and sufferings, before they would yield to vice, or death. What a prominent place would be secured for his speech in the journals, with the ostentatious heading: "'MONSON P. TRACY'S PLEA FOR OUR POOR CITIZENS.' "'Monson P. Tracy's offer to head a paper for our respectable poor, with a subscription of five hundred dollars.' "Yes, I understand all about it." "Helen, Sis," plead her brother, after gazing at her with mingled wonder and alarm. "Don't look so. I don't know you. Think of dear father." "No, I dare not think of anything so sweet and precious. Poor Sarah's wants must be relieved." She pulled out her netted purse, her face growing every moment more hard and defiant, and impulsively tore open a roll of bills. Then, with a groan of regret, exclaimed, "I have only twenty-six dollars, and thirty are needed at once." "Give me the address," urged Frank, "and I will forward the money by this morning's express. Fifty dollars will not be too much, and fortunately I have some bank notes with me." "Come with me, my poor child," urged the pastor, taking Helen's hand, as with a face from which all the color had vanished, she stood gazing after her brother's retreating form. "Come with me. I must inquire into this." CHAPTER VIII. THE SUBSCRIPTION PAPER. SIX months have passed since the events related in the last chapter. After a week's holiday, the brother and sister returned to the city, where the student intended to pass the remainder of his vacation. Soon after their arrival, Helen renewed her lessons both in music and drawing, devoting herself to her practice with a zeal which threatened to prove an injury to her health. Her guardian being absent on a business tour, and the time of Roswell being unusually employed in his father's store, the young wards found their residence in the city far more endurable than they had expected. By the advice of Mr. Knowles, Frank had persuaded his sister to return to her studies, and endeavor to bear with patience the annoyances and petty trials likely to arise from the fact of living with persons so uncongenial to her taste. That there was anything beyond such annoyances to be feared, neither Mr. Knowles nor Frank imagined. For, true to her own sense of honor, Helen had kept the secret she had overheard strictly within her own breast. In the beginning of the autumn, just after her brother had left for College, the young girl was seized with the measles which were very prevalent at that time. In her case the disease was violent, and left her with an alarming cough which confined her to her chamber for months.