"Have you paid the interest, Mark?" asked his wife.

 

"Yes; I paid it this afternoon, and it has stripped me of money completely. I have less than five dollars in my pocketbook toward buying you and the children clothes for the winter."

 

"Never mind me," said his wife cheerfully. "I am pretty well provided for."

 

"Why, mother," said Sarah, the oldest daughter, a girl of fourteen; "you haven't had a new dress for a year."[4]

 

"I have enough to last me till spring, at any rate," said the mother.

 

"You never buy anything for yourself."

 

"I don't go in rags, do I?" asked Mrs. Nelson, with a smile.

 

Mrs. Nelson had a happy disposition¹, which led her to accept uncomplainingly, and even cheerfully, the sacrifices which, as the wife of a farmer in poor circumstances, she was compelled to make.

 

"You are right, Sarah," said Mark Nelson. "Your mother never seems to think of herself. She might have been much better off if she had not married me."

 

The children did not understand this allusion². They had never been told that their mother had received an offer from Squire³ Hudson, the wealthiest man in the village, but had chosen instead to marry Mark Nelson, whose only property was a small farm, mortgaged for half its value. Her rejected admirer took the refusal hard, for, as much as it was possible for him, he loved the prettiest girl in the village, as Mary Dale was generally regarded. But Mary knew him to be cold and selfish, and could not make up her mind to marry him. If she had done so, she would now be[5] living in the finest house in the village, with the chance of spending the winter in New York or Boston, instead of drudging in an humble⁴ home, where there was indeed enough to eat, but little money for even necessary purposes. She had never regretted her decision. Her husband, though poor, was generally respected and liked, while the squire, though his money

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