This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
FRANCES BEAUMONT.
231

accounts of the day. The profits were sufficient to enable her to live in great comfort, and the decent education which she had contrived to afford her son had been already repaid by his dutiful affection, and assistance. But it was time now for him to be doing something more, he was growing up to manhood, and the present situation was one beyond his hopes. The last tea-cup was washed, and Fanny had taken her resolution; she drew a stool close to the arm-chair, and communicated her project. "I can cast up accounts very well, and your son can put me in the way of doing yours."

The old woman was at first silent from excess of astonishment.

"A young lady like yourself!" was her almost inarticulate reply: but at length she began to comprehend the possibility, and her surprise was next equalled by her gratitude.

That very evening, Fanny took her lesson. The matter had even more difficulty than she expected, for Sarah's own memorandums were