For weeks and months his heart was full of fear.  If Mary, or Kate, or little Harry looked dull, he was seized with instant alarm.  A slight fever almost set him wild.  Scarcely a week passed that the doctor was not summoned on some pretense or other, and medicine forced down the throats of the little ones.

This was the aspect of affairs, when, in a time of great fiscal derangement, the bank in which Mr. Bancroft was clerk suffered a severe run, which was continued so long that the institution was forced to close its doors.  A commission was appointed to examine into its affairs.  This examination brought to light many irregularities in the management of the bank, and resulted in a statement which made it clear that a total suspension and winding-up of the concern must ensue.

By this disaster, Mr. Bancroft was thrown out of employment.  Fortunately, the clerk in his old situation in the insurance company gave up his place very shortly afterward, and Bancroft on application, was appointed in his stead.  The salary was only a thousand dollars, but he was glad to get that.

So serious a reduction in his income made some reduction in existing expenses necessary.  This was attained, in part, by removing into a house for which a rent of only two hundred dollars, instead of three, was paid.

Still the parents trembled for their children, and were filled with alarm if the slightest indisposition appeared.  A few months passed and again the hand of sickness was laid upon the family of Mr. Bancroft.  Mary and Kate and little Harry were all taken with the fatal disease that had stricken down Flora and William in the freshness of youth and beauty.  The father, as he bent over his desk had felt all day an unusual depression of spirits.  There was, upon his mind, a foreshadowing of evil.  On leaving the office, rather earlier than usual, he hurried home with a heart full of anxiety and fear.  His wife opened the door for him.  She looked troubled, but was silent.  She went up-stairs quickly—­he followed.  The chamber they entered was very still.  As he approached the bed, he saw that Mary and Kate were lying there, and that Harry was in the crib beside them.  Their faces were red, and when he placed his hands upon their foreheads, he found them hot with fever.

Hopelessly and silently the unhappy man turned from the bed, and seated himself in a distant corner of the room.  The death-mark was upon his children—­did he not recognize the fatal sign?  He had remained thus for only a minute or two, it seemed, when he felt a hand upon his arm.  He looked up; his wife stood beside him, and her eyes rested steadily in his own.  She pointed to the bed and motioned him to return there.  He obeyed with a shrinking heart.  No words were spoken until they were again close to the children; then the mother said, in a calm, cold, stern voice—­

“You murmured at the blessings God gave us, and he is withdrawing them one by one.  When these are gone, it will not cost us over five hundred dollars to live, and then you can save five hundred a year.  Five hundred dollars for three precious children!  But it’s the price you fixed upon them.  Kate and Mary and Harry, dear, dear, dear ones! not for millions of dollars would I part with you!”