"I knew you were. What did Captain Littleton say?"
"Thanks to the goodness and forethought of your father, we are not left entirely destitute," replied Mrs. Duncan, wiping a tear from her cheek.
"I didn't know there was anything left."
"After paying all the funeral expenses and the doctor's bills, I shall have fifty dollars in money. Your father had no debts."
"Fifty dollars isn't much, mother, towards supporting the family. It wouldn't last two months."
"That is very true; we have more than that. Three years ago your father had his life insured for a thousand dollars, and this sum will be paid to me in a few days."
"I didn't know that," said Paul, greatly surprised to find they had what seemed to him so vast a sum. "We shall get along very well."
"Your father used to calculate that it cost him about eight dollars a week to live, or about four hundred dollars a year. If he had had work all the year round, he might have saved a very handsome sum, he used to tell me."
"It will not cost us eight dollars a week now."
"No; we must live very prudently; but if it cost us only five, a thousand dollars would last but a few years, and what should we do then?"