"I don't know how I can tell it to you," he replied; his lips quivered—he looked down. Effie clasped his arm affectionately.
"You know I would do anything for you," she said.
"Yes; I know you are the best of girls, and you're awfully pretty, too. I know Fred Lawson will think so when he sees you."
"Who is he?"
"A friend of mine—a right good fellow—he is a medical student at St. Joseph's Hospital. I have often met him, and he has talked to me about his own sisters, and one day I showed him your photograph, and he said what a pretty girl you were. Somehow, Effie, I never thought of you as pretty until Fred said so. I suppose fellows don't think how their sisters look, although they love them very dearly; but when Fred said it, it opened my eyes. Dear, dear, why am I talking like this, when time is so precious, and I—Effie, when I came down that day to see my father, I was in trouble—great trouble; the shock of seeing him seemed to banish it from my mind, but it cannot be banished—it cannot be banished, Effie, and I have no one to confide in now but you."
"You must tell me of course," said Effie; she felt herself turning pale. She could not imagine what George's trouble was. The night was dusk; she raised her eyes to her brother's face—he avoided meeting them. He had a stick in his hand, and he began to poke holes in the gravel.
"How much money have we got to live on?" he asked abruptly.
"How much money have we to live on?" repeated Effie. "I believe, when all is collected, that there will be something like a hundred a year for mother and Agnes and Katie and the two little children. Of course I am going to support myself somehow, and you are naturally off our hands."
"It's awful," said George; "it's awful to be so starvingly poor as that. Why, I get a hundred a year now; fancy five people living on a sum on which I never can make both ends meet!"
"What is the matter with you, George? How queerly you speak! You knew we should be awfully poor when father died. You are going to pay for your board, are you not, when you come to us, and that will be a great help."