“He that sends mouths, will be sure to send something to fill them.”

There was, in this trite and homely mode of settling the matter, something conclusive, for the time, even to Mr. Bancroft.  But doubt, distrust and fear, were his besetting sins, and in a little while, would come back to disturb his mind, and throw a shadow even over the sweet delights of home.

“If there was to be no more increase of family, we could do very well,” he would often say to himself; “but how we are to manage with another baby, is more than I am able to see.”

But all this trouble upon interest availed not.  The baby came, and was received with the delight such visits always produce, even where there is already a house full of children.  A crib for little Flora, who was now two years old, and able to amuse herself, with occasional aid from her mother and Nancy, the stout girl, who had in two years, grown stouter and more useful, was all the change the coming of the little stranger, already as warmly welcomed as the oldest and dearest friend could be, produced in the household arrangements of Mr. Bancroft.  But sundry expenses attendant upon the arrival and previous preparations therefor, drew rather heavier than usual upon his income, and made the supply fall something short of the demand.  At this point in his affairs, a vacancy occurred in an insurance office, and Mr. Bancroft applied for and obtained the clerkship.  The salary was seven hundred dollars a year.  All was now bright again.  In the course of a few months, it was thought best for them to rent the whole of a moderate-sized house, as they really needed more room, for health, than they now had; besides, it would be much pleasanter to live alone.  For an annual rent of one hundred and fifty dollars, they suited themselves very well.  They waited, until the additional salary gave them the means of increasing their furniture in those particulars required, and then made the change.  The second comer was a boy, and they had him christened William.  As year after year was added to his young life, he grew into a gentle, fair-haired, sweet-tempered child, whose place upon his father’s knee was never yielded even to his sister, on any occasion.  His ear was first to catch the sound of his father’s approaching footsteps, and his voice the first to herald his coming.  This out-going of affection toward him, caused Mr. Bancroft to feel for little “Willy,” as he was called, a peculiar tenderness, and gave to his voice a tone of music more pleasant than sounds struck from the sweetest instruments.

Year after year came and went, in ever varying succession, adding, every now and then, another and another to the number of Mr. Bancroft’s household treasures.  For these, he was not always as thankful as he should have been; and more than once, in anticipation of blessings in this line, was known to say something, in a murmuring way, about being “blessed to death.”  And yet for Flora, and William,