“If you have any troubles, dear, let me share them, and they will be lighter.”  Anna spoke with much tenderness.

“I hardly think your sharing my present trouble will lighten it,” said Brainard, forcing a smile, “unless, in so doing, you can put some four hundred dollars into my empty pockets.”

Anna withdrew a pace from her husband, and looked at him doubtingly.

“Do you speak in earnest?” said she.

“In very truth I do.  To-morrow I have four hundred dollars to pay; but where the money is to come from, is more than I can tell.”

“How in the world has that happened?” inquired Mrs. Brainard.

Involuntarily the eyes of her husband wandered towards the piano.  She saw their direction.  Her own eyes fell to the floor, and she stood silent for some moments—­silent, but hurriedly thoughtful.  Then looking up, she said, in a hesitating voice—­

“We can do without that.”  And she pointed towards the piano.

“Without what?” asked Brainard, quickly.

“The piano.  It cost four hundred dollars.  Sell it.”

“Never!”

“Why not?”

“Don’t mention it, Anna.  Sell your piano!  It shall never be done.”

“But, George”—­

“It’s no use to talk of that, Anna; I will not listen to it.”

And so the wife was silenced.

Little comfort had the young couple that evening in their finely furnished house.  Brainard was silent and thoughtful, while Anna felt the pressure of a heavy weight upon her feelings.

How different was it in the smaller and more plainly attired dwelling of Tyler!  There was comfort, and there were peace and contentment, her smiling handmaids.

On the next morning, Brainard found it impossible to conceal from his wife the great anxiety he felt.  She said very little to him, for his trouble was of a kind for which she could suggest no remedy.  After he parted with her at the door, she returned and sat down in one of the parlours to think.  The piano was before her, and back to that her thoughts at length came.  It was not only a beautiful instrument, but one of great excellence.  Often had it been admired by her friends, and particularly by a lady who had several times expressed a wish to own one exactly like it in every respect.

“I wish you would let me have that piano,” the lady had said to her not a week before; and said it as much in earnest as in jest.

“I wonder if she really would buy it?” mused Mrs. Brainard.  “I don’t want so fine an instrument.  My old piano is a very good one, and is useless at father’s.  Oh! if I could only get George the four hundred dollars he wants so badly!”

And she struck her hands together as her thoughts grew earnest on the subject.  For more than an hour the mind of Mrs. Brainard gave itself up to this one idea.  Then she dressed herself and went out.  Without consulting any one, she called upon the lady to whom reference has been made.