I have been careless
about my accounts, and she has kindly undertaken to attend to them
for me."
"Could not I have done that?"
"No; why should your little head be troubled about money matters? But
to go on. I see that it was thoughtless in me not to tell you what we
were about. But I am greatly perplexed and harassed in many ways.
Perhaps you would feel better to know all about it. I have only kept
it from you to spare you all the anxiety I could."
"Oh, Ernest," I said, "ought not a wife to share in all her husband's
cares?"
"'No," he returned; "but I will tell you all that is annoying me now.
My father was in business in our native town, and went on
prosperously for many years. Then the tide turned-he met with loss
after loss, till nothing remained but the old homestead, and on that
there was a mortgage. We concealed the state of things from my
mother; her health was delicate, and we never let her know a trouble
we could spare her. Now she has gone, and we have found it necessary
to sell our old home and to divide and scatter the family My father's
mental distress when he found others suffering from his own losses
threw him into the state in which you see him now. I have therefore
assumed his debts, and with God's help hope in time to pay them to
the uttermost farthing. It will be necessary for us to live
economically until this is done.
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