"Sewing?" said Mr. Carpenter. "There are too many in the village already that do sewing--more than can live by it." "If I cannot here," his wife said after a pause, overcoming herself,--"I might go to New York. Serena would help me to get some work." "Would she?" asked her husband. "I think she would." "Your charity always goes ahead of mine, Eunice." "You think she would not?" "I wouldn't like to have you dependent on her.--This is what you get for marrying a poor man, Eunice!" He smiled and stretched out his hand to take the hand of his wife. "Hush!" she said. "I married a richer man than she did. And I have wanted for nothing. We have not been poor." "No," he said. "Except in this world's goods--which are unimportant. Until one is leaving one's wife and child alone!" I suppose she could not speak, for she answered nothing. The fingers clasped fingers fast and hard; wrung them a little. Yet both faces were steady. Mrs. Carpenter's eyes looked somewhat rigidly into the fire, and her husband's brow wore a shadow. "I wish your father had left you at least the old place at Tanfield. It would have been no more than justice. Serena might have had all the rest, but that would have given you and Rotha a home." "Never mind," said Mrs. Carpenter gently. "I am content with my share." "Meaning me!" And he sighed. "The best share of this world's goods any woman could have, Liph." "We have been happy," he said, "in spite of all. We have had happy years; happier I could not wish for, but for this money trouble. And we shall have happy years again, Eunice; where the time is not counted by years, but flows on forever, and people are not poor, nor anxious, nor disappointed." She struggled with tears again, and then answered, "I have not been disappointed. And you have no need to be anxious." "No, I know," he said. "But at times it is hard for faith to get above sense. And I am not anxious; only I would like to know how you are going to do." There was a silence then of some length. "Things are pretty unequal in this world," Mr. Carpenter began again. "Look at Serena and you. One sister with more than she can use; the other talking of sewing for a livelihood! And all because you would marry a poor man. A poor reason!" "Liph, I had my choice," his wife said, with a shadow of a smile. "She is the one to be pitied." "Well, I think so," he said. "For if her heart were as roomy as her purse, she would have shewn it before now. My dear, do not expect anything from Serena. Till next fall you will have the shelter of this house; and that will give you time to look about you." "Liph, you must not talk so!" his wife cried; and her voice broke. She threw herself upon her husband's breast, and they held each other in a very long, still, close embrace.