George was in great trouble just then, but the change that brought it was small compared with the change in him, wrought since the winter before. Having once accepted Christ as his Saviour, he had gone manfully about his daily duties amid his old temptations and associations, and in spite of jeers and ridicule he had kept the faith. He had grown wonderfully in grace also, and he and Sailor Jack had become fast friends, and had more than once knelt together and prayed for the Master's blessing upon the Black Forge people. What a difference it makes in a man when he is "clothed and in his right mind?" Betsy Branford would have told you that she could scarcely believe herself that this strong, manly, sober, industrious George Branford, was the wild, reckless, drinking, ungodly man whom she had called husband so short a time before. He was so strong in his faith, too; so sure that God heard and answered prayer, that she had, even in these few months of his Christian life, come to lean upon him, and to look to him for help in her own religious growth. When, now, he happened to be cast down and discouraged, her own heart grew weak, and her faith failed. What was the trouble? Why this--and no wonder the strong man grew faint for a moment: the last morsel of food in that house had been eaten that morning. Not a mouthful remained for that frail mother; not a mouthful for the little children; not even a drop of milk for that sleeping babe. Nor was this extreme want due to any fault or neglect of that strong, manly husband. The little that came to him when the Forge Mills shut down had been carefully husbanded. He had used his money only for the barest necessaries of life, and he had earned every cent he could during the weeks the mills had been still. But with hundreds of idle men seeking and clamoring for work, there had been but little for each one, and the pay for that little was meagre indeed, and soon exhausted. It was a large family, too, for one pair of hands to provide for. Mr. Branford, Sr., ever since the strike, had hung about the saloons, and the little he earned went into the rumseller's till, or was whiffed away in smoke. He came around to the house, however, for his meals, and uttered many a bitter oath if he was obliged to go away without them. Then there were the three sisters, all Christians now, and practicing self-denial in every way, and ready to do any honest work; but they got little, and this was their only home. Even now they had gone out to the hills with Betsy's older children, hunting for chestnuts that bright October morning that they might sell them for bread. Of those older children there were three, and now in the cradle lay a fourth; and then there was the wife and mother, and lastly the strong, hearty husband and father. Ten mouths in all! Is it any wonder that with his scanty work and scantier pay, and with his most rigid economy, too, they had now reached a condition of absolute want?