“Papa,” she said, “our lives will not be meagre and colorless unless we make them so.  Every tree and shrub—­indeed every leaf upon them and every ripple on the water—­seems beautiful to me this evening.  I do not fear working hard if we can often have these inexpensive pleasures.  The thing in poverty that has most troubled me was the fear that one’s nature might become blunted, callous, and unresponsive.  A starved soul and heart seem to me infinitely worse than a starved body.  Thank God, this beautiful place is as free to us now as ever, and I think we enjoy it more than many of those people in yonder carriages.  Then at the cost of a few pennies we can get many a breezy outlook, and fill our lungs with fresh air on the ferryboats.  So don’t let us be downhearted, papa, and mope while we are waiting for better days.  Each day may bring us something that we can enjoy with honest zest.”

“God bless you, Millie,” replied her father.  “We’ll try to do just as you suggest.”  Nevertheless he sighed deeply.  She was free; he was a slave.  In the depths of the placid lake the graceful swans, the pretty wooded shores, were faithfully reflected.  In Mildred’s clear blue eyes the truth of her words, the goodness and sincerity of her heart, were revealed with equal certainty.  His eyes were downcast and fixed on an abyss which no soul has ever fathomed.

“Great God!” he murmured, “I must escape; I shall—­I will escape;” but while Mildred stepped into a florist’s shop to purchase a blooming plant for Mrs. Wheaton, he furtively took from his pocket a small paper of white-looking powder—­just the amount which experience had taught him he could take and not betray himself.  As a result she was delighted to find him genial and wakeful until they parted rather late in the old mansion wherein, she jestingly said, she proposed to build their nest, like a barn-swallow, the following day.

After a brief consultation with Mrs. Wheaton the next morning Mildred told her father to send for the rest of the family at once, and that she would be ready for them.  The household goods arrived promptly from their place of storage, and she was positively happy while transforming the bare rooms into a home that every hour grew more inviting.  They had retained, when giving up their house in the spring, more furniture than was sufficient for the limited space they would now occupy, and Mildred had enough material and taste to banish the impression of poverty almost wholly from their two rooms.  She had the good sense, also, to make the question of appearances always secondary to that of comfort, and rigorously excluded what was bulky and unnecessary.  “I don’t like crowded rooms,” she said, “and mamma must have just as little to care for and tax her strength as possible.”  One side of the large room was partitioned off as a sleeping apartment for her father, mother, and the two children, and was made private by curtains of dark, inexpensive