"He's hard on me, sir, after all his fair promises," said Richards, as he handed Mr. Bradford the bill; "and you see he has me, for I made no agreement with him, and I don't know as I can rightly say that the law would not allow it to him; so, for that reason, I don't dare to dispute it. But I thought Mr. Ray might be able to make some arrangement with him, and I _can't_ pay it all at once, nor this long time yet, that's settled. If he would wait, I might clear it off in a year or two though how then we are to get bread to put into the children's mouths I don't see. And there is the rent to pay, you know. We have tucked the children and Mrs. Granby all into one room, and let out the other two up-stairs; so that's a little help. And Mary was talking of selling that mahogany table and bookcase that are as dear to her as if they were gold, for they were her mother's; but they won't fetch nothing worth speaking of. The English colonel that came after your little daughter, when she was up at the station that day, was so good as to hand me a ten dollar bill, and we laid that by for a beginning; but think what a drop in the bucket that is, and it's precious little that we've added to it. I don't see my way out of this; that's just a fact, sir, and my only hope is that the Lord knows all."