I could not easily forget poor Jessie's distress, and I found myself often thinking what could have made Mr. Graham sell so good a cow. Surely, I said to myself, it cannot be that he is poorer than he has been, and in want of money which he could not get in any other way. I knew that he had had rheumatism so badly during the past winter, that he had not been able to get out to work till quite late in the spring; but, notwithstanding this, as the seasons had been favorable, his garden did not seem to have suffered much. Besides, his family were so prudent and industrious, that I thought they always spent less in the year than he made, and so, that he was able every year to lay up some money against worse times. Jessie came over every morning to see her friend Mooly milked, and to take a mug of milk to her grandmother, which Harriet took care should be large enough to give the children some milk with their breakfasts. In the evening she was always ready to give Mooly her supper; and as I saw her, day after day, come skipping and singing along, I felt comforted about her father's circumstances, for I was sure that Jessie at least had not heard of his being in any great distress or difficulty. One morning a servant came to me to ask whether Jessie should be waited for, as it was, she said, quite time the milking was done, and Jessie was not yet in sight.

"Oh yes! pray, Aunt Kitty, wait," said Harriet, "she will be here presently, I am sure she will—just wait five minutes."

As she spoke, she ran to the window to watch for Jessie, and soon called out, "Here's Jessie; but how slow she comes! Do, Aunt Kitty, look!—You said, the other day, Jessie never walked, and I am sure she is walking now as slowly as her grandmother could. Why, now, she has stopped and turned around as if she was not coming at all. Why, I do believe she is crying! What can be the matter?"

She darted out of the room as she finished speaking, and when I reached the window through which she had been looking, she was already standing beside Jessie with her arm around her, talking to her. For a long time Jessie did not speak, but when she did, she seemed very much in earnest, while Harriet listened with an expression of the most eager interest. At length Jessie's story, whatever it was, was ended, and Harriet seemed to have comforted her, for she wiped her eyes, and looked more cheerful as they passed the window where I stood, walking hand in hand to the yard where the cow and the dairywoman were waiting for them. In a little while, Jessie passed by again on her way home. As she dropped a courtesy to me and wished me good-morning, I saw that her eyes were still red and her face swollen with weeping, though she had pushed her bonnet entirely off her head, that the cool breeze might take away the inflammation. Jessie was such a merry-hearted child that I felt it could be no trifling thing which had distressed her so much; yet I would not ask Harriet any thing about it, because I was sure she would speak of it herself, if Jessie had not made her promise to keep it secret, and if she had, I would have been sorry that she should do any thing so dishonorable as to mention it. There was a servant in the room when she came in, and I saw that Harriet was quite restless during the few minutes that she stayed. As soon as she went out, Harriet closed the door after her and began, "Oh, Aunt Kitty! I am so sorry. Jessie is going away, and Mr. Graham and all—going to some far-off place in the West. And Jessie says her father has lost a great deal of money, and that he is so poor he cannot pay for his place, and so they are going to take it from him. Jessie heard Mr. Butler talking to him about it this morning, and she says Mr. Butler—"

"Stop, stop, Harriet, if Jessie only overheard a conversation between her father and Mr. Butler she was very wrong to repeat it to you, and the wrong must not go any further—you must not tell it even to me."

"Oh, but, Aunt Kitty, Mr. Graham told Jessie he did not mind her telling anybody except her grandmother. He does not want old Mrs. Graham to know it yet; I do not know why. It was Mr. Graham's talking about his mother that made Mr. Butler tell him, Jessie says, that, if he thought he would be able to pay him next year, he would wait for his money till then; but Mr. Graham said something about a bank breaking down—I did not quite understand that, Aunt Kitty,—but at any rate, all his money was in it, and he told Mr. Butler that he never expected to be able to pay him, and that he must take the house back. Mr. Butler said that he would try to get some one to buy it who would not want it till next year, so that Mr. Graham need not go till then; but then, Aunt Kitty, they will have to go."

"I am very sorry for it, Harriet, very sorry indeed."

"I knew you would be, Aunt Kitty, and I told Jessie so, and that you would try to think of something to help her father, and maybe they would not have to go at all."

Harriet was silent and looked earnestly in my face for a minute, then finding I did not answer her, she said, softly, "Will you not, Aunt Kitty, will you not help Mr. Graham?"

"Most gladly, Harriet, if I can, but I do not yet see how. You know I am not very rich just now myself."

Harriet looked quite discouraged and thoughtful for a while, then said, "Could not Uncle Mackay help him?"

"You know that your uncle is about to travel on account of your aunt's health, and you may have heard him complain of being kept here much longer than he wished, in consequence of the difficulty of getting the money which is necessary for himself. Besides, Harriet," said I, interrupting her as she was about to speak, "I feel sure, from what I know of Mr. Graham, that he would not take the money he needs, as a gift from anybody, while he is well and strong, and only to lend it to him would be doing him little service, since it would be as difficult to pay it back as to pay for his house."

Harriet looked quite desponding, and said, "Poor Jessie, she will have to go, then."

"There is but one way, Harriet, which I now think of to prevent it. I have heard Mr. Graham say that he had more leisure than he liked, and that he could very well attend to another garden besides his own and your Uncle Mackay's. Now, if we could get more work and more wages for him, he could, perhaps, hire a house for the present, and might in time again lay up money enough to buy."

"That's it, Aunt Kitty—that's it—that is the very best plan," said Harriet, eagerly; "do let me run over and tell Jessie about it."

"Wait, Harriet, till we see some prospect of succeeding in it, before we say any thing to Jessie. After breakfast we will go over to your uncle's, and see if we can learn any thing from him likely to profit Mr. Graham."

Before I had left the breakfast table, Harriet called out, "Aunt Kitty, here are Uncle Mackay and Mr. Graham coming this way." When they reached my gate, however, Mr. Graham passed on towards his own house, and my brother came in alone. He had just heard from Mr. Graham, that he would probably be obliged to leave us soon, and seemed much grieved about it. Mr. Graham had told him that his father had leased his house and garden from Mr. Butler for twenty-one years—that is, had engaged for that time to pay a certain sum of money every year for them. When the twenty-one years were out, Mr. Graham had offered to buy them, on condition that he should not be asked to pay the money for ten years. During this time, he had every year put by something towards paying this debt in a savings bank, and now, when the ten years wanted but a very few months of being ended, and he thought himself quite ready to pay for his house, he discovered that the bank had failed, or, as Harriet said, broken—that is, that it had nothing with which to pay him and others whom it owed.

My brother thought my plan for helping Mr. Graham would be a very good one, if we could only find the work and the wages; but this he feared would not be easy, as there were few persons in the neighborhood who employed a gardener.

"There is my friend Dickinson," he said at length, "who told me, when I saw him last, that he intended to dismiss his gardener, because he could not keep his children out of the garden, where they were forever annoying him by trampling on his flower-beds and breaking his flowers. This would be an excellent place, for he gives his gardener a very pretty house and some ground for himself, besides a high salary, but—"

"Oh!" said I, interrupting him, "do not put in a but, for that is the very place we want."

"Yes, Aunt Kitty," said Harriet, eagerly, "that is the very place."

"I fear," said my brother, smiling at her earnestness, "that it is a place which even Aunt Kitty with all her influence cannot get, for Mr. Dickinson declared he was determined never again to employ a man who had children, and you know his determination is not easily changed."

Still, discouraging as the case seemed, I resolved to try, and ordering the carriage, I asked Harriet if she would like to go with me. "No, thank you, Aunt Kitty. I would like the drive, but Mr. Dickinson looks so cross I am always afraid he is going to scold me."

"Did you not tell me, when we were last there, that you would never be afraid of him again, after seeing him play so good-humoredly with William Temple?"

"Oh yes, Aunt Kitty; and now I remember that, I think I will go, if you will ask Mrs. Temple, when we get there, to let me play with William in the nursery."

Harriet was soon ready, and as the day was bright and the road good, we had a very pleasant drive of a mile and a half to Mr. Dickinson's. Before I tell you of our visit, however, you would perhaps like to hear something of Mr. Dickinson himself, of Mrs. Temple, and of little William.