each had. Frankie gave up asking him for help in "joggerfy," for her mother saw that it embarrassed the collector, and forbade it. Once he took the child to a circus, for he thought himself old enough to need an excuse; and after that, his deficiencies in geography were forgotten.

So in many small ways there grew up an intimacy which always surprised the young man when he chanced to think of it, and which made a great many things easier for Mrs. Bently. He suggested devices for making things go farther, for she was utterly inexperienced in the business. Her husband, he learned, had brought her to the city, and worked in the lead manufactory, while they lived in an upper tenement. His love had been larger than their narrow surroundings, and she, satisfied in his affection, had lived little acquainted with the city. The neighborhood gossip gave her but a superficial view into the hard life of the improvident. Her husband earned good wages, and took all the household care from the wife's shoulders that a husband can; and it was only when he died, of lead poisoning, after a long sickness, that she came face to face with the necessities of her lot. With the little money that remained from their savings, she moved into a lower tenement, and offered twenty-cent dinners to the workmen in the vicinity. A large number of her husband's friends, whom she had never known, came to her table and she took heart for her enterprise.

The collector did not fare so well in his business. He was an academy graduate and had other ambitions than merely the handling of money. Being only moderately successful at collecting, he answered several advertisements of other lines. An architect took a fancy to him and would have offered him a chance to study in his office, but in a short acquaintance he noticed how many stories of his passages with debtors Clement could tell, and how well he told them, and therefore he went to see a friend on the staff of a small daily. Before Clement heard anything of this, he received a letter from the daily offering him a month's trial as reporter. Thus it came about that he collected news instead of money.

His associates were more congenial to him now, and as several of them, like himself, were homeless in the city, they got a small flat together and slept and worked there and occasionally cooked a meal by themselves on an oil stove. These occasions were so much enjoyed that there was talk of getting a housekeeper and having their meals at home more regularly, but they were generally too busy to look up a suitable woman, and nothing was done about it.

The month of trial had justified the architect's hopes, and Clement was paid a fair salary. At first, the irregularity was wearisome, but that soon wore off and the satisfaction of an assignment well done was uppermost. His easy fellowship was widened by constant contact with men, while his perception of the value of intimacies and friendships was sharpened. His open face and ready speech inspired confidence in others, and he appreciated more fully the proper value to attach to this.

When the Anthony Lead Works burned down and Clement was sent to find out about the insurance, he thoughtfully stopped at Mrs. Bently's to quiet her fears in regard to the danger. There was little wind, and the fire gave no signs of spreading at first. But when the first wall fell, it came down partly in the square, and many brands scattered, falling on the roofs. The frightened tenants began to carry things out to the sidewalk, and Clement fell to work, forgetting his assignment, moving some of the more valuable pieces of furniture into the street. Mrs. Bently lost her head once, and a pile of plates went through the window; but Clement induced her to take refuge in a house on the other street, where she had a slight acquaintance. He carried Frances along, for she was too terrified to make her own way, and then returned to his self-imposed labors. A strange man stepped up to him as he left his friends, and inquired of him whether Mrs. Bently would lose everything, and if she would have any place to go to. He spoke hurriedly, as if he had no business to ask. The young man, supposing him to be one of Mr. Bently's old associates, assured him what little he could.

"That was her little girl you carried?" asked the man again.

Edward eyed him sharply. "Oh, I thought you knew them," he said. "Never mind, if you are a stranger around here and have n't any one else to look after, come along and help me."

The man yielded, and for some time carried out furniture, with more care than one would expect from a stranger. Clement did not stop to speculate, but worked on. Suddenly he thought of

his assignment.

"Will you do me a favor?" he asked, turning suddenly to his assistant. "We're very much obliged for your help to-night; there's only a little more. If you'll get this to the Sun office, I'll stay and attend to these things."

The danger of fire was almost over, but the danger of theft could not be reckoned. The stranger took the note-book reluctantly, but, without questioning the young man's authority, set about his errand.

As soon as the reporter had time for a moment's thought, it flashed upon him that, while the loss of the lead factory would cripple Mrs. Bently's trade, she was just such a woman as they wanted for a housekeeper.

From Edward it needed but little argument to persuade her, and his associates consented at once. The next morning, therefore, a team came for the goods on the sidewalk, and two extra rooms were hired by the reporters to accommodate their plans.

The new work made less worry than the old, and Frances could go to school in a better neighborhood; Clement was always ready with a helping hand, and "the boys" daily complimented her cooking. What more was needed to make her happy? Something, thought Clement, when he surprised her once with wet eyes; and he wondered what it could be. Frankie was (c doing

finely," said all the neighbors and her teachers, and the household arrangements ran smoothly; but in the peaceful flow of her new occupation, old sorrows, which the eddies of daily anxiety had submerged, came occasionally to the surface. There was a vacant place in her heart, from which vague longings sometimes sent out their silent voices.

Frances was taken with the scarlet fever, and it grew very serious

at one time. The boys would not hear of Mrs. Bently keeping on with the housework. Clement was more than ever her right hand, and he would drop whatever he was doing to run her errands, at the time when the little girl was lowest.

Mrs. Bently never thought of him as a stranger; he was more than a friend to her. In her heart of hearts, he was a son to her, but even in her own thoughts she did not own it. She even tried to excuse her feelings to herself by pretending she thought he resembled a nephew who had died in his early manhood. Sometimes in her thoughts she called him her son, and then she would make a mental correction to nephew; for so hard is it to the children of the Puritans to acknowledge in themselves the softer feelings. Once when she had had a hard day in the sick-room, and he came in to help her, in his kindly way, she almost asked him to call her "Aunt Ellen;" but her rigid morality would not let her speak the lie with which she excused her emotions to herself.

Edward felt this love she bore him, but without recognizing it. His tenderness increased, even while he did not comprehend the

reason.

Coming home one night, he noticed some one looking at the house, and he observed that the stranger walked off rapidly when he saw the reporter turn the corner. He knew his strong figure, but could not place him.

It was rather late, and Clement sat down in the kitchen and made the best of the picked-up supper he got together. Mrs. Bently came in while he was eating, and said, with a tired smile on her face:

"The doctor has just been here, and says the danger is all over, and Frankie won't die."

Edward bowed his head a moment and whispered, "The Lord have praise!" and there was a glad ring of true feeling in his quiet voice.

Then the woman's calm broke down, and her strength seemed almost to leave her. Edward quickly rose, and she impulsively threw her arms about him, weeping, and in the fulness of her

weariness and joy, kissed him softly on the cheek. checked herself a moment and cried, "O Mr. Clement,

Then she " but

he did not let her take her arms away, and answered, “ Call me Edward." Then he added, "And 've been a mother to me you can't I call you so?" And, as he spoke, he looked back at what before he had only blindly felt, and saw that this woman had long loved him as her son.

Frankie called softly and her mother left the kitchen to quiet the child. The young man did not go on with his meal, but sat gazing at the stove, though it, indeed, had no part in his thoughts.

When Mrs. Bently came back into the kitchen, there was a little constraint in her manner, as if not quite sure of the effect of her unprecedented emotional outbreak. Edward saw the difficulty; he had not so much of the Puritan restraint, and soon set their relations at ease again by resuming the talk, and slipping in "Mother" now and then in an inconsequential way.

not

Mrs. Bently sat where she could see and hear if Frances called again, and the talk drifted this way and that for some time. Clement was telling a story which he had just come across much of a story, but a true one, by the way. A friend of his who kept house engaged an elderly woman to do the kitchen work, and it was her story. She had had a hard time in her native country, and when she was left a widow, with six children, she had money enough to come to America, where some of her family had settled long before. From Castle Garden they went North; and having found no home yet in fabled America, started for the more fabulous West. The Canadian Pacific train waited three hours in a small city in Quebec, and to keep the children contented, they left the train and walked up and down the streets. The children were hungry, and they stopped at a bakeshop for a few rolls. The woman who waited on them asked them to sit down, as she saw how tired the mother seemed.

"You are English, from your talk," she said.

assented, and added that she came from Kent.

Her customer

"And do you know anybody near Fentshire?" Yes, they were