I forgot to say, all this while, that my name is Annie—Annie Gray—but Miss Judith never calls me anything but “Martha.” She commenced this when mother was ill, because I kept so busy, and perhaps, too, because I was “troubled about many things,” for indeed I was all during her illness, and for a long time after, too, for the debt we owed to the doctor and nurse hung like a black cloud over the household. It is different with some people, but debt has always seemed a very serious evil to us. I believe father has dreaded it almost more than anything else, and up to mother’s illness, he had always avoided it; but the demands which sickness makes are very great, and can’t be easily disregarded. Ah! how often I have heard father say: “Owe no man anything,” after which he would always add, “whether this is a Divine command, or only loving counsel I cannot say, but, in either case, I shall not willingly disregard it.” Well, it was right funny, but soon after mother’s illness, Dr. Armstrong commenced his Friday evening lectures to the congregation “On Secular Matters,” as he said in his notice. Father took me to the first one, and I couldn’t help giving his hand a squeeze when he gave out the subject, “Debts: How They are Made, and How They May be Paid.” I can’t remember the words he used, which is a pity, but Dr. Armstrong’s words, as well as his thoughts, are forcible, but I know the sense of it all was that debts are generally commenced in a small way, little by little, little by little, they are added one to the other, till presently an account is presented to us of such overwhelming proportions that we despair of ever wiping it out. “But I trust,” he added, “that none of my friends who find themselves in this unhappy situation will give way for a moment to a feeling of discouragement. Step by step have we been led into trouble; let us retrace our way in like manner, step by step. Begin from this moment a system of judicious retrenchment; lay aside sums, never mind how trifling, toward the liquidation of your debt, and little by little it will melt away, till, almost unconsciously to yourself, it has disappeared, and you, again a free man, ‘can look the whole world in the face.’” “Ah, that was practical! That was what I needed!” said father, as we came out after the lecture was over, “and I, for one, shall not ‘approve the doctrine and immediately practice the contrary.’ No; from this very moment I shall begin to retrench and put by. Ah, Annie, ‘a word in season,’ how good it is! I was almost ready to despair till now.”