use was again looked over, inch by inch.

"You _must_ have put that money somewhere else than in my purse," said
Dr. Lively to his wife. "Have you looked in the pockets of all your
dresses?"

"Don't say to me again that I didn't put that money in your purse," said
Mrs. Lively vehemently: "I won't bear it. You might as well tell me that
I don't see you this minute. There never was anything in this world that
makes me so tearing mad as to be contradicted about something that I
perfectly well know. I'd go into any court and swear that I put that
money in your purse; and I don't want to hear any more of your
insinuations. Do you think I've stolen the money? You've lost it out of
the purse--that's all there is about it. This house has no more been
entered than I've been burglaring."

"Then where's the money?"

"How in the name of sense do you think I know? I'd go and get it if I
knew. Dear! dear! dear! dear! The savings of ten years gone in a night,
after all my pinching! I've done my own work--"

"When you couldn't get a girl," said Napoleon.

"I've worn old-fashioned clothes; I've twisted and screwed in every
possible way to save that money--"

"Pa saved it," was Napoleon's emendation.

"Well," retorted the lady, "he'd better not have saved it: he'd better
have let his family have it. What's the use of saving money for
burglars?"

"You think now that the burglars have it?" said the doctor dryly.

"Oh, for pity's sake, hush! I don't think anything about it. I believe
I'm going insane. How in the universe we're ever going to live is more
than I can conceive."

"My dear, we are better off than we were ten years ago, for I yet have
my practice, and we are as well off as you thought we were two days ago;
and you were happy then."

"Happy!" There was a volume of bitter scorn in the word as Mrs. Lively
uttered it.

"Oh, my dear!" said the husband in a tone of piteous remonstrance.

The next evening, which was Sunday, Dr. Lively and wife went to church,
and; heard a sermon by the Rev. Charles Hilmer from the words, "Help one
another."

"What's the use of preaching such stuff?" said Mrs. Lively with
petulance when they were out of church. "Nobody heeds it. Who's going to
help us in our loss?"

"Our lesson from that sermon is, that we are to help others," said the
doctor.

"We help others! I'd like to know what we've got to help others with!
Five thousand dollars out of pocket!"

"There's a fire somewhere,"