She longed for his return, but when he came he gave her no comfort.

“Don’t speak to me,” he said; “I can tell you nothing that you do not already know.  The events of the next few weeks will make all plain enough.”

The logic of events did convince even Mrs. Jocelyn that making no provision for a “rainy day” is sad policy.  The storm did not blow over, although it blew steadily and strongly.  The firm soon failed, but Mr. Jocelyn received a small sum out of the assets, which prevented immediate want.  Mildred’s course promised to justify Arnold’s belief that she could be strong as well as gentle, for she insisted that every article obtained on credit should be taken back to the shops.  Her mother shrank from the task, so she went herself and plainly stated their circumstances.  It was a bitter experience for the poor child—­far more painful than she had anticipated.  She could not believe that the affable people who waited on her so smilingly a few days before would appear so different; but even those who were most inclined to be harsh, and to feel aggrieved at their small loss in cutting the material returned, were softened as she said, gently and almost humbly: 

“Since we could not pay for it we felt that it would be more honorable to bring it back in as good condition as when received.”  In every instance, however, in which the goods had been paid for, she found that she could effect no exchange for the money, except at such reduced rates that she might as well give them away.

Even Mrs. Jocelyn saw the need of immediate changes.  One of their two servants was dismissed.  Belle pouted over the rigid economy, now enforced all too late.  Mildred cried over it in secret, but made heroic efforts to be cheerful in the presence of her father and mother; but each day, with a deeper chill at heart, she asked herself a thousand times, “Why does not Mr. Arnold come to see me?”

Vinton Arnold was in even greater distress.  He had to endure not only the pain of a repressed affection, but also a galling and humiliating sense of unmanly weakness.  He, of course, learned of the failure, and his father soon after took pains to say significantly that one of the members of the iron firm had told him that Mr. Jocelyn had nothing to fall back upon.  Therefore Arnold knew that the girl he loved must be in sore trouble.  And yet, how could he go to her?  What could he say or do that would not make him appear contemptible in her eyes?  But to remain away in her hour of misfortune seemed such a manifestation of heartless indifference, such a mean example of the world’s tendency to pass by on the other side, that he grew haggard and ghost-like in his self-reproach and self-contempt.  At last his parents began to insist that his health required a change of air, and suggested a mountain resort or a trip abroad, and he was conscious of no power to resist the quiet will with which any plan decided upon would be carried out.  He felt that he must