Adversity may be a hard task-mistress,

she is an excellent teacher in the school of life,

their Spartan upbringing had given the Gascoynes certain resourcefulness and grit of character that they might possibly have lacked in more affluent surroundings.

They were not a perfect family by any means, and had their squabbles and their cross moods like many another;

but on the whole they were ready to give and take,

make sacrifices for each other,

to try day by day to live a little nearer to that wonderful high standard that Father ever set before them,

which he himself followed so faithfully and truly.