“Mother,” exclaimed her daughter Annie, a slender, delicate girl of fifteen, who sat in a cane rocker, feather-stitching an infant’s jacket with blue silk, a small pile of the unfinished garments lying in a box on a table before her, “what do you mean?”
“The rent money is gone. I had it in this corner of the bureau, waiting for the agent, whom I expect at any moment. There were two fives and five ones. They are not here now. Where could they have gone?”
“The money may have slipped under some article in the drawer, mother,” suggested the girl, anxiously.
“No; I have searched and turned over everything. The money is gone. How are we to face this fresh misfortune?”
Mother and daughter looked at one another in silent discouragement.
And well they might feel discouraged since, with the exception of perhaps fifty cents in silver, the missing money had represented their entire capital.
And Jack, the other member of the family, a particularly bright and ambitious boy of sixteen years, had just lost his position, owing to the failure of the firm with whom he had been employed ever since the death of the husband and father, two years before, had thrown them upon their own resources.
During the lifetime of Mr. Hazard the family had lived in a rented house on a side street in a very respectable neighborhood uptown and had been considered well off.
Jack and Annie had graduated from the public school and were expecting to enter the high school with the next term, when their father died suddenly, and it was found that Mr. Hazard, who had been a liberal provider, had lived up to his means and, what was more unfortunate, had neglected to insure his life.
Of course, Mrs. Hazard had to move to a cheaper home and neighborhood, for the few dollars she found herself possessed of after the funeral and other necessary expenses had been paid would not keep them for any great length of time.