position was an honourable one, and brought him into connection with many eminent and interesting persons, but, unfortunately for his wife and children, the salary attached to the office was small. So it was that in our home there was a never-ending struggle to make ends meet. Sometimes the ends gaped hopelessly wide apart, and strain as we would, it was impossible to bring them together. Then it became a question of what we could do without.

It is wonderful how many things with which we cumber our lives are really unnecessary and can be dispensed with if we choose. I remember that once we did without a servant for twelve months. It was a question of doing so, or of taking me from school a year sooner than my parents had intended, and there was no doubt in my mother's mind as to which was the more important, the progress of my education or the smoother running of the domestic machinery. She and Olive did the work of the house with the help of a rough girl who came in for a few hours every morning. Olive had been attending a cookery class, and she hailed this opportunity of showing her skill. So dainty were the dishes she set before us that we children rather liked the change of administration.

It was a happy circumstance that we were all fairly gifted with a sense of humour. As charity covereth a multitude of sins, so this gift, said to be rare in womankind, enables one to combat successfully with a host of petty annoyances. We laughed together over the pinchings of our poverty, and we took pride in the contrivances by which we presented a brave front to the world. Thus it was that our pecuniary straits made us neither sordid nor sour. There are many worse experiences than that of being poor. As I look back on those old days, I am often moved to thank God that we had not an easy, luxurious upbringing. The difficulties that marked our home life were unheroic, but they drew us closely together and taught us many useful lessons we might not otherwise have learned.

Olive, the eldest of the family, was mother's right hand. She was not only, as I have said, a clever cook; her skill in needlework surpassed her culinary accomplishments. I have rarely seen finer sewing and stitching than Olive could put into her daintiest work. Moreover, she could boast a valuable attainment in a household of girls, the art of dressmaking. It was wonderful how cleverly she would remodel old garments and make them look like new ones. What we owed to this gift of hers I cannot tell. Between us all we kept her needle busy.

Happily Olive had an engagement to act as reader and amanuensis for an old lady, which took her from home 

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