“Yes, dear, I know. If she had only got her situation a little earlier, there might have been some chance; but the lot is growing more valuable all the time, and Mr. Clapp is a grasping man.” Ruth Laurence clasped her hands, and turned her eyes upon the wall. “Oh! how helpless I am!” she said, with a thrill of pathetic pain in her voice. “If we could both work now.” “But that is impossible. Besides, what would the house be without you—a cage without its bird?” That moment, a brave, young voice came singing up to the front door of that tiny house, and a bright face leaned through the open window, under which Ruth was lying, and shook some ripe leaves from the vines upon her. “All right—both here,” cried as fine a school-boy as you ever sat eyes on, swinging a package of books down from his shoulder, and coming through the little hall. “I’ve got along famously, mother: not a demerit. But what makes you look so sober?” The lad seemed to lose something of his bright animation as he entered that humble parlor and saw his mother’s anxious face, his large grey eyes clouded over with anxiety and he stood a moment gazing mutely upon her. “Well, mother,” he said at last, “has Eva come home yet? She promised us a famous supper when those people paid her, and I’m on hand for it, if ever a little chap was. Not here yet, you say! Now that’s what I call rough! Isn’t it, sister Ruth?” “She will be home soon,” answered sister Ruth, returning the boy’s kiss with a gentle sigh. “How cold your lips are!” exclaimed the boy, and a look of tender trouble came into his eyes. “Is it because you are hungry, sister Ruth? If it is, I’ll—I’ll go and sell my school-books, and play hookey after it, to get you something to eat. As for me, I was only in fun. A chap of my age don’t want much, you know.” “But the books are not yours, dear,” answered the sweet, sad voice from the couch; “they belong to the city.” The boy stood still a moment while the slow color mounted to his face. “I know that,” he answered, almost crying; “but just then they seemed to be mine, dear old friends, ready to go anywhere for my good. Anyway, if I was a fairy now, every one of them should turn into something good to eat; bread for me, and pound-cake for mother, and—and——” “Beef-steak for us all!” said the mother, joining in the conversation. The boy drew in his breath and smacked his lips, as if the very idea of a warm beef-steak were a delicious morsel to be tasted and lingered over. “Oh, that! but then one must not be extravagant. Who knows! Eva may come back with a whole pocket full of rocks!” the boy broke forth, after a moment of dull despondency. “Come, mother, cheer up, something good is going to happen. I feel it in my bones.” Mrs. Laurence arose feebly from her chair, took the boy’s head between her hands and kissed him, with a sort of slow restrained passion, half a dozen times, as if she thought each kiss could be coined into food for his hungry lips.