relationship, sits beside her, eagerly awaiting the news which is evidently contained in the letter.

“Oh, I am so glad, Rosa! they have found traces of her at last.”

“Of who, mother—old nurse?” asked Rosa.

“Yes, your father’s old nurse; indeed I may say mine also, for when I was a little girl I used to pay long visits to your grandfather’s house. And it seems that she is in great poverty—almost destitute. Dear, dear old nurse! you won’t be long in poverty if I can help it!”

As she spoke, a handsome man of middle age and erect carriage entered the room. There was an expression of care and anxiety on his countenance, which, however, partly disappeared when the lady turned towards him with a triumphant look and held up the letter.

“Didn’t I tell you, Jack, that your lawyer would find our old nurse if any one could? He writes me that she has been heard of, living in some very poor district on the south side of the Thames, and hopes to be able to send me her exact address very soon. I felt quite sure that Mr Lockhart would find her, he is such an obliging and amiable man, as well as clever. I declare that I can’t bear to look at all the useless luxury in which we live when I think of the good and true creatures like old nurse who are perishing in absolute destitution.”

“But being disgusted with our luxury and giving it all up would not mend matters, little wife,” returned Jack with a faint smile. “Rich people are not called upon to give up their riches, but to use them—to spend well within their means, so as to have plenty to spare in the way of helping those who are willing to help themselves, and sustaining those who cannot help themselves. The law of supply and demand has many phases, and the profits resulting therefrom are overruled by a Higher Power than the laws of Political Economy. There are righteous rich as well as poor; there are wicked poor as well as rich. What you and I have got to do in this perplexing world is to cut our particular coat according to our cloth.”

“Just so,” said the lady with energy. “Your last remark is to the point, whatever may be the worth of your previous statements, and I intend to cut off the whole of my superfluous skirts in order to clothe old nurse and such as she with them.”

Rosa laughingly approved of this decision, for she was like-minded with her mother, but her father did not respond. The look of care had returned to his brow, and there was cause for it for Colonel Brentwood had just learned from his solicitor that he was a ruined man.

“It is hard to have to bring you such news, darling,” he said, taking his wife’s hand, “especially when you were so happily engaged in devising liberal things for the poor, but God knows what is best for us. He gave us this fortune, when He inclined uncle Richard to leave it to us, and now He has seen fit to take it away.”

“But how—what do you mean by taking it away?” asked poor Mrs Brentwood, perceiving that her husband really had some bad news to tell.

“Listen; I will explain. When uncle Richard Weston died, unexpectedly, leaving to us his estate, we regarded it you know, as a gift from God, and came to England resolving to spend our wealth in His service. Well, yesterday Mr Lockhart informed me that another will has been found, of later date than that which made me uncle Richard’s heir, in which the whole estate is left to a distant connection of whose very existence I had become oblivious.”

“Well, Jack,” returned the lady, with a valiant effort to appear reconciled, “but that is not ruin, you know. Your pay still remains to us.”

“I—I fear not. That is to say, believing the estate to be mine, I have come under obligations which must be met and, besides, I have spent considerable sums which must be refunded—all of which, if I understand the law of the land rightly, means ruin.”

For some moments Mrs Brentwood sat in silent meditation. “Well,” she said at length, with the air of one who has made up her mind, “I don’t understand much about the law of the land. All I know is that my purse is full of gold just now, so I will snap my fingers at the law of the land and go right off to visit and succour our dear old Liz.”