We did not think it was a Banker’s Clerk, but a Boarder! Robin, sitting in the wicker rocker in the window, spied him first.

“Hurrah!” he piped in his shrill little treble. “I just know that big fat man is coming here! He is going to ring our door-bell, and engage all the empty rooms! See, if he doesn’t.”—

And the prophecy came true! It was almost like the relief of Lucknow.

For, oh! I don’t know how much longer we could have held out.

It was day before yesterday that it happened. I had wakened with a start in the early, chill, grey morning, trying dully to remember how many potatoes still remained in the bottom of the vegetable box, and whether there was coffee enough to tide us through the week. It was certain that the coal would not last. Should we begin pawning the spoons then,—as Haze predicted,—or, maybe, mother’s watch?

And, suddenly, it seemed as if life were not worth living any longer. I did not feel as if I could get up and make my way, candle in hand, down the narrow kitchen stairs to an arctic basement, and a sordid round of housework. It was Monday, too! The very thought made my back ache and my head swim;—but mother must not suspect, because I had persuaded her that the washing was not too much for me; in fact, that I rather enjoyed it!

And, to be sure, at the very beginning it had not seemed so bad. Novelty lent spice. With the optimism of ignorance I determined that mind as well as muscles should be exercised. While scrubbing I would learn French poetry.

So, with sleeves rolled above the elbow, the soap-suds splashing in my hot face, I rubbed, rinsed, and wringered, murmuring the while:—

or in more romantic vein,—

But this particular morning there was no enthusiasm left. My brain was dull, my tongue stumbled and tripped over the most familiar lines, I could not control my thoughts. Haze had a cough, and nothing but a sweet potato sandwich for luncheon,—the struggle was too unfair, too hopeless!—till, actually, I caught myself weeping into the washtub, bedewing the family linen with splashing tears.

Certainly, things did look black. It was over a month since the Hancocks had left us, nearly two since we bade farewell to Mrs. Hudson. Even mother was beginning to show the strain. She looked worn and worried. As for me, I was tired of the dish-washing, the sweeping, the dusting; everything to be done afresh each day. I had not touched my mandolin for weeks. My hands, then puffed and scarlet, would be stiff and cracked on the morrow. I held them up and looked at them.

Which brought the thought of Meta, and the old inevitable contrast. That very evening she was going to a party;—a pretty, informal affair, consisting of charades, a supper, and a dance. How care-free her life was! How happily exempt from sordid considerations! She was surrounded by attention, gayety, admiration,—I would love such things, too!

A great fat tear rolled off the tip of my nose, and splashed down on Robin’s little striped pajamas.

“Come, come,” I told myself. “This is ridiculous! Cheer up, child, and repeat Horatius, if you can’t remember any French.”

But even Macaulay’s stirring lines, with which Haze and I have heartened each other since nursery days, seemed to have lost their magic.

I began; and ended on a sob. Till, quite unexpectedly, without the least premeditation, I found myself murmuring instead:—

It was the beautiful collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. There seemed nothing incongruous in repeating it above a washtub, either! Instantly I dried my tears. “Whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us!” That was the whole trouble! Parties, indeed! attention! What did they matter to a girl blessed with the dearest family in the world to love and work for? My back stopped aching. I thought of little patient Robin upstairs in the big rocker, “pertending” to play with his “friends,”—how his pale cheeks would flush with pleasure if I could manage to hang out the clothes in time to sit with him a few moments before lunch. It was worth trying for! And so I did;—and it was that very morning, if you please, that Bobsie, looking down the street, uttered his jubilant shout:—

“A Boarder! A Boarder!”

His name is Mr. Lysle. He has a square, bland face, a portly presence, and a heavy artillery voice. It was Ernie who dubbed him “the Hippopotamus.” He has rented our three empty rooms at the biggest price we have yet received for them; and he and his wife and his sister will move in on Saturday! Oh, how beautiful!—that we should have been so “speedily helped and delivered.”

“My brave little Elizabeth,” said mother to me late this evening, “you have been such a comfort, such a support! But it is over now, dear. We will send to-morrow for Rose to come back. We will order furnace coal, and—we haven’t drawn on our bank account!”

Then she kissed me, and I blushed for very shame. For I have not been brave,—you know that, old diary,—at least not inside. How I wish that I might look back, and honestly feel that I have earned mother’s precious praise!