128 THE STRAWBERRY GARDEN. 



of financial common ' sense : "Bother position in society! 

 Let's keep out of debt, any way. Who cares if we don't 

 live in this house, or on this street? " 



Both the girls held up their teaspoons in horror. 



" Position is everything. How'd you like to give up 

 your playfellows and come down in the world ? " 



"Hush, children!" said their mother. " You are 

 getting very worldly. Society is not everything." 



" Yes ; but it is so hard to come down." 



Further discussion followed this, and after a while Helen 

 came in to clear the table, and the subject was dropped. 

 Soon after Mr. Wellson took to his account-books, and with 

 his wife went over for the twentieth time the long columns 

 of figures that represented their dull sorrows. Such 

 petty and harassing work. The ins and the outs were 

 persistently at variance, and their eyes ached over the 

 wretched matter. What discouraging work, and how de- 

 structive to all that is best in life ! And yet it must be 

 done. Oh, debt ! what a horrid, horrid thing it was ! 

 How could a man be a saint, or a woman the angel she 

 ought to be, while in debt? 



As for the children, Mary tried to read, Kate was silent, 

 and much given to wishing she were rich ; and Johnny was 

 lost in a brown study. At nine the evening came to an 

 end, and they sought the best country for them, the land 

 of sheets and dreams, Mary dull and dispirited, Kate very 

 sober, and her father and mother weary and harassed, As 



