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“Not a great wrong, but a great good,” answered Mr. Ellis. “And I will make this plain to you. Henry, as I learn from yourself, has made some dangerous associations; and some important change is needed to help him break away from them. No sphere of life is so safe for a young man as that which surrounds profitable industry pursued for an end. Temptation rarely finds its way within this sphere. Two or three years devoted to the duties of a clerk, with the end of aiding in the support of his mother and sisters, will do more to give a right direction to Henry’s character–more to make success in after life certain–than any thing else possible now to be done. The office in which I can get him the situation I speak of adjoins the one to which I am attached, and I will, therefore, have him mostly under my own eye. In this new school, the ardency of his young feelings will be duly chastened, and his thoughts turned more into elements of usefulness. In a word, sister, it will give him self-dependence, and, in the end, make a man of him.”

The force of all this, and more by this suggested, was not only seen, but felt, by Mrs. Darlington; and when she found her son ready to accept the offer made to him, she withdrew all opposition.

Steps preliminary to the contemplated change were immediately taken. First of all, Edith waited upon a number of their old friends, who had young children, and informed them that she was, in connection with her sister, about opening a school. Some were surprised, some pleased, and some indifferent at the announcement; but a goodly number expressed pleasure at the opportunity it afforded them of placing their younger children under the care of teachers in whose ability and character they had so much confidence. Thus was the way made plain before them.

CHAPTER XII.

A FEW weeks later, and the contemplated change was made. The family removed into a moderate-sized house, at a lower rent, and prepared to test the new mode of obtaining a livelihood. A good portion of their furniture had been sold, besides three gold watches and some valuable jewelry belonging to Mrs. Darlington and her two eldest daughters, in order to make up a sum sufficient to pay off the debt contracted during the last few months of the boarding-house experiment. The real loss sustained by the widow in this experiment fell little short of a thousand dollars.

“How many scholars have you now?” asked Mrs. Darlington of Edith, two months after the school was opened, as they sat at tea one evening, each member of the family wearing a cheerful face.

“Twenty,” replied Edith. “We received two new ones to-day. Mrs. Wilmot came and entered two of her children; and she said that Mrs. Armond was going to send her Florence so soon as her quarter expired in the school she is now attending.”

“How much will you receive from your present number of scholars?” inquired Henry.

“I made the estimate to-day,” returned Edith, “and find that the bills will come to something like a hundred and twenty-five dollars a quarter.”

“Five hundred dollars a year,” said Henry; “and my five hundred added to that will make a thousand. Can’t we live on a thousand dollars, mother?”

“We may, by the closest economy.”

“Our school will increase,” remarked Edith; and every increase will add to our income. Oh! it looks so much brighter ahead! and we have so much real comfort in the present! What a scene of trial have we passed through!”

“How I ever bore up under it is more than I can now tell,” said Mrs. Darlington, with an involuntary shudder. “And the toil, and suffering, and danger through which we have come! I cannot be sufficiently thankful that we are safe from the dreadful ordeal, and with so few marks of the fire upon us.”