"There, Ellen, is something to make a nice pie for us to-morrow," said he, tossing his game bag upon the table.
"You look tired, Henry," said his wife, tenderly; "I wouldn't go out any more this fall, if I were you."
"I don't intend going out any more, Ellen," was replied, "I'm sick of it."
"You don't know how glad I am to hear you say so! Somehow, I always feel troubled and uneasy when you are out gunning or fishing, as if you were not doing right."
"You shall not feel so any more, Ellen," said Thorne: "I've been thinking all the afternoon about your cloak. Cold weather is coming, and we haven't a dollar laid by for anything. How I am to get the cloak, I do not see, and yet I cannot bear the thought of your going all this winter again without one."
"O, never mind that, dear," said Ellen, in a cheerful tone, her face brightening up. "We can't afford it this fall, and so that's settled. But I can have Jane's whenever I want it, she says; and you know she is so kind and willing to lend me anything that she has. I don't like to wear her things; but then I shall not want the cloak often."
Henry Thorne sighed at the thoughts his wife's words stirred in his mind.
"I don't know how it is," he at length said, despondingly; "William can't work any faster than I can, nor earn more a week, and yet he and Jane have every thing comfortable, and are saving money into the bargain, while we want many things that they have, and are not a dollar ahead."
One of the reasons for this, to her husband so unaccountable, trembled on Ellen's tongue, but she could not make up her mind to reprove him; and so bore in silence, and with some pain, what she felt as a reflection upon her want of frugality in managing household affairs.
Let us advance the characters we have introduced, a year in their life's pilgrimage, and see if there are any fruits of these good resolutions.