Western land. For a season there were caresses and even tears, of mutual
love and thankfulness.

"My precious wife!" he exclaimed, as he clasped her close. "What a
treasure in you, if all the money in the world should fail!"

"But your piano!" he said, with regret overreaching his appreciation of
her sacrifice.

"Let it go," she merrily replied. "I could not play worth listening
to--this you must admit. It was just an expensive, cumbersome
toy--that's all."

Next day the balance of the debt was borrowed upon the security of the
western deed, and Henry Woodruff was a free man once more. When the five
hundred dollars jumped to thousands in a sudden boom, he bought a neat
home. Here, Margaret, the valued friend, supplied produce from her farm.

Eleanor was never quite content till Harry had looked up her two
maligners, and brought them to the pleasant domain where she presided,
and which her painfully awakened energy had helped to buy. In time she
told her secret, and thanked them for that ten minutes' gossip. In time,
too, sons and daughters came and found a mother prepared by self-denial
for the exigencies of life.




The Iron Box