“She was very well pleased with her place, I believe; but as I have taken it into my head to do without her, and am a very wilful creature, as you know, why, there was no remedy but to let her get another place.  So I told her as much this morning, and she has already found a pleasant situation—­not so good, however, as this, she says.  Come, don’t look so serious about it!  Theodore can bring water for me, and you can cut the wood, and among us we will do very well.  It is a pity if two people can’t take care of themselves, and three other little bodies besides.  And just see what we will save?—­Four dollars a month for her wages, and her boarding into the bargain.  And you know, Mary, though a kind, good sort of a body, and very industrious and obliging, eat almost as much as all the rest of us together.”

“Well, Constance, put as good a face upon the matter as you can, but I feel that stern necessity has brought you to it.”

“You must not talk so much about ‘stern necessity,’ Theodore.  It is surely no great hardship for me to sweep up the house every morning, and get the little food we eat.  I know that our income is cut off, for I don’t suppose you are going back to that iron-store again.  But there will be a way opened, for us.  The kind Being who is trying us for our good will not leave us in our last extremity.  It is for us to do the best we can, with what we can get.  Now that our certain resources are withdrawn, it is for us to limit our expenses to the smallest possible sum.  We have, it is true, lived quite frugally for the past year.  But it is possible for us to live on much less than the five hundred dollars that it has cost.  Our servant’s wages and boarding were at least one hundred dollars; and by the present retrenchment we save that sum, and shall live just as comfortably, for now we will all help to take care of each other.”

“So far so good, my comforter!  But where will the four hundred dollars come from?”

“Well, let us go on.  We pay one hundred and fifty dollars for this house.  By going out upon the suburbs of the town, we can get a pleasant little house for five dollars a month.”

“O, no, Constance, you are too fast.”

“Not at all.  I have seen just the little place that will suit us.  The house is not old, and everything around is sweet and clean.  And it’s plenty big enough for us.”

“Well, Constance, suppose by so doing we reduce our expenses to three hundred and ten dollars.  Where is that sum to come from?  I can’t get any work.”

“Don’t despair, Theodore!  We shall not be forsaken.  But we must do for ourselves the best we can.  I have been turning over a plan in my head, by which we can live much cheaper and a great deal happier; for the less it takes us to live, the less care we shall have about it.”

“Go on.”

“By moving into a smaller house, we can dispense with a great many things which will then be of no use to us.  These will bring us from two to three hundred dollars, at public sale.  Good furniture, you know, always brings good prices.”