The Empty Sack

leven Indiana Avenue, Pemberton Heights. Seen from the New York river-front, Pemberton Heights, on top of a great cliff on the New Jersey side of th

ll-to-do can find shelter there, as the medi?val peoples of the Mediterranean coast found it in the rock towns where the pirates couldn't follow them. It is hardly conceivable that industry will ever climb to this uncomfortable perch, or that

hattan is sketched in here with a single stroke, while the river is thronged like a busy street seen from the top of a tower. City smoke rolls up and ocean mist rolls in while you are looking on. Sunrise, moonrise;

hydrangea trees, shaped like open umbrellas, and covered now with white blossoms fading to rose, stood one on each side of the front door in the center of two tiny grassplots. There was a piazza, of course, where most of the family leisure was passed, and in the yard behind the house there stood a cherry tree. All up and down the street for the length of about ha

ree on a mortgage which it was his ruling desire to pay off. The mild, tenacious optimism of his nature convinced him he should be able to do this, in spite of the danger of being "fired" hanging over him for two years. The fact that, though the months kept passing, that sword

painstaking life had fitted him for nothing better than the scrap heap. That he should come to such an end he couldn't believe possible. That after nearly fifty years of uncomplaining drudgery he should be flung aside as usel

omacy. The banking institutions being few and large, the employees are moved from post to post, much like attachés or army officers. As moves bring promotion, the clerk becomes a teller and the teller a cashier and the cashier a bran

bout, of course, but with little or no promotion. Other men got that, but he was ignored. Harum-scarum young fellows whose

failure, she nevertheless saw that he was not the man she had supposed in the gay young days at Lisgar, and he saw

as it stood, with its pictures, its silver, its furniture, its stores, rather than break their tie with England. Scorned by the country from which they fled, and ignored by that to which they remained true, their history on Nova-Scotian soil was chiefly one of descent. A few of them prospered; a few reached high positions in the adopted land, but most of them lacked opportunity as well as the will to create it. True, Lizzie's father was a clergyman; but her sisters married po

plunge at the gym, and Follett nearing home, Lizzie was on her knees pinning up the draperies she was "making over" for Gussie. Pansy, the

en, pretty, pert

the old thing you've been w

laint, Lizzie though

ng everyone's sick of the sight of. Momma, wh

father gets his raise. It must come before lo

with her lessons in a corner. "How can I study with all th

of the house being thrown into one large living room, the dining table stood at the end nearest the kitchen and pantry. It was a pleasure to watch the supple movements of Gussie's figure,

husband and four children, it retained a quality proud and aloof. In her scouring and cooking and endless domestic round, Lizzie was like an actress dressed and made up for a humble part rather than really living it. Th

a minute in the little entry, surveying the living-room absently, while Pansy pranced

s your

gest, his darling, just over twelve. He had alway

s round his neck, she was pu

e asked of Gussie, havin

mother was in the kitchen, but, seeing his gray face a

right, daddy

antry, drying her hands on the corner of her apron. Before he said a word she knew that the

e, I'm

died in babyhood. This was the worst and hardest thing her imagination could conjure up, becaus

his shoulders and tried to look into

dly. I'm glad you're out of Collingham & Law's, where you've said yourself that your desk was in a draught. You'll get another job, with bigger p

-lo,

g, ruddy, clear-eyed, stocky rather than short, he was a Herculean cub, the makings of a man, but as yet with no soul beyond play. No one had ever seen him serious. It was a drawback to him at

"clks!" of the tongue, Pansy assisting by springing halfway to his shoulder. The s

est ever! What have

ssible as if nothing else was

ling. They've discharged your

y; he had thought himself a boy; he had called himself a boy. Even in the navy he had been with boys who

t to play it o

I'll be making more money soon an

re the discor

quick, then, and be smarter

her watched him with adoring eyes while his fa

y boy," he said, brokenly, "but perhaps I may get

possible to respond to. He would have to be a man; he would have to earn big money, and at present he didn't see

s pockets, when the front door opened again. Jennie came i

y, of Teddy, beginning to take off her jac

ely, before she could join

aused with her arms still outstretche

't want him any more

the righ

at are we g

ever get another job, not on your life, unless it's runnin

rother's dismay. To begin with, she was a woman, and he was only a man. All his adventures would have to be dull ones in the line of w

but if the worst were to come to the wor

sessed. "Teddy's been telling me. Too bad, isn't 't? But

the table, putting

rincesses," she said, witheringly. "

o up and tak

on a sinking ship. It was an indication that life could go o

them, "don't everybody look so glum. Why, if you knew

sit down to supper itself. There the old man cheered up sufficiently to be able to tell what had passed between him and the he

is mouth full. "I'll do something to get even w

lled her brother by the coat till he sank back into his

thing to say, my boy-"

roke in, calmly. "Going to the chair can

g as if she had sa

that the limit,"

ew strength which seemed to have come to her withi

eturned sheepishly to his plate, while Pansy stood apart from t