Three weeks passed, and again not only Mr. Tudor, but another creditor, began to be troublesome.

“How soon is your father going to pay up his bill?” asked Tudor, when Grant called at the store for a gallon of molasses.

“Very soon, I hope,” faltered Grant.

“I hope so, too,” answered the grocer, grimly.

“Only three weeks ago I paid you thirty-three dollars,” said Grant.

“And you have been increasing the balance ever since,” said Tudor, frowning.

“If father could get his salary regularly—­” commenced Grant.

“That’s his affair, not mine,” rejoined the grocer.  “I have to pay my bills regular, and I can’t afford to wait months for my pay.”

Grant looked uncomfortable, but did not know what to say.

“The short and the long of it is, that after this week your father must either pay up his bill, or pay cash for what articles he gets hereafter.”

“Very well,” said Grant, coldly.  He was too proud to remonstrate.  Moreover, though he felt angry, he was constrained to admit that the grocer had some reason for his course.

“Something must be done,” he said to himself, but he was not wise enough to decide what that something should be.

Though he regretted to pain his mother, he felt obliged to report to her what the grocer had said.

“Don’t be troubled, mother,” he said, as he noticed the shade of anxiety which came over her face.  “Something will turn up.”

Mrs. Thornton shook her head.

“It isn’t safe to trust to that, Grant,” she said; “we must help ourselves.”

“I wish I knew how,” said Grant, perplexed.

“I am afraid I shall have to make a sacrifice,” said Mrs. Thornton, not addressing Grant, but rather in soliloquy.

Grant looked at his mother in surprise.  What sacrifice could she refer to?  Did she mean that they must move into a smaller house, and retrench generally?  That was all that occurred to him.

“We might, perhaps, move into a smaller house, mother,” said he, “but we have none too much room here, and the difference in rent wouldn’t be much.”

“I didn’t mean that, Grant.  Listen, and I will tell you what I do mean.  You know that I was named after a rich lady, the friend of my mother?”

“I have heard you say so.”

“When she died, she left me by will a pearl necklace and pearl bracelets, both of very considerable value.”

“I have never seen you wear them, mother.”

“No; I have not thought they would be suitable for the wife of a poor minister.  My wearing them would excite unfavorable comment in the parish.”

“I don’t see whose business it would be,” said Grant, indignantly.

“At any rate, just or not, I knew what would be said,” Mrs. Thornton replied.

“How is it you have never shown the pearl ornaments to me, mother?”

“You were only five years old when they came to me, and I laid them away at once, and have seldom thought of them since.  I have been thinking that, as they are of no use to me, I should be justified in selling them for what I can get, and appropriating the proceeds toward paying your father’s debts.”