The Coachmaster 



And she added with a tremor in her 

 voice, *' I cannot tell you how precious the 

 kindness of friends is to my dear Father in 

 this time of loss and sorrow." It was well 

 that Mary came to the rescue in that 

 manner, for my Father, and no shame to 

 him, had laid his head on his arms and was 

 crying like a child. And that was how it 

 came about that the Coachmaster never 

 went bankrupt. 



Of course my Father felt it now wrong, 

 nay impossible, to attempt to maintain his 

 old business. The office was closed, and 

 my parents betook themselves and the 

 little household gods that had kept in their 

 niches so many a long year, to a small 

 house in Ship Street, with Mary their 

 loving housekeeper, and a young man as 

 boarder, whose weekly payments helped 

 a little towards the rent ; and there they 

 lived simply enough on the little sum my 

 Father had contrived to save out of the 

 wreck of his trebly reduced earnings. I, 

 who was now a married man, went down 

 to see them in the new home as soon as I 

 could spare money for the journey. I 

 found my dear old Father looking much 

 older than when I had last seen him, walk- 

 ing with a stick among the flowers in his 

 little walled garden ; and this was the first 



8 1 F 



