The
moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart.
When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend
Barbel. She listened with a sad and eager interest.
"I am afraid," she said, "if our fortunes do not quickly
mend, that we shall have to buy two little grindstones. You know
I could help you at that sort of thing."
For a long time we sat together and talked, and devised many
plans for the future. I did not think it necessary yet for me to
look out for a pin contract; but I must find some way of making
money, or we should starve to death. Of course, the first thing
that suggested itself was the possibility of finding some other
business. But, apart from the difficulty of immediately
obtaining remunerative work in occupations to which I had not
been trained, I felt a great and natural reluctance to give up a
profession for which I had carefully prepared myself, and which
I had adopted as my life-work. It would be very hard for me
to lay down my pen forever, and to close the top of my inkstand
upon all the bright and happy fancies which I had seen mirrored
in its tranquil pool. We talked and pondered the rest of that
day and a good deal of the night, but we came to no conclusion as
to what it would be best for us to do.
The next day I determined to go and call upon the editor of
the journal for which, in happier days, before the blight of "His
Wife's Deceased Sister" rested upon me, I used most frequently to
write, and, having frankly explained my condition to him, to ask
his advice.
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