talk me out of this feeling, for I do feel bad."

"I will talk all night if it makes you better, my own Lottie. Now, what
is troubling you?"

"In the first instance, you don't seem to believe this story about our
money."

"I neither believe it, nor the reverse--I simply don't let it trouble
me."

"But, Angus, that seems a little hard; for if the money was left to me
by my father I ought to have it. Think what a difference it would make
to us all--you, and me, and the children?"

"We should be rich instead of poor. It would make that difference,
certainly."

"Angus, you talk as if this difference was nothing."

"Nothing! It is not quite nothing; but I confess it does not weigh much
with me."

"If not for yourself, it might for the children's sakes; think what a
difference money would make to our darlings."

"My dear wife, you quite forgot when speaking so, that they are God's
little children as well as ours. He has said that not a sparrow falls
without His loving knowledge. Is it likely when that is so, that He will
see His children and ours either gain or suffer from such a paltry thing
as money?"

"Then you will do nothing to get back our own?"

"If you mean that I will go to law on the chance of our receiving some
money which may have been left to us, certainly I will not. The fact is,
Lottie--you may think me very eccentric--but I cannot move in this
matter. It seems to me to be entirely God's matter, not ours. If Mr.
Harman has committed the dreadful sin you impute to him, God must bring
it home to him. Before that poor man who for years has hidden such a sin
in his heart, and lived such a life before his fellow-men, is fit to go
back to the arms of His father, he must suffer dreadfully. I pray, from
my heart I pray, that if he committed the sin he may have the suffering,
for there is no other road to the Father; but I cannot pray that this
awful suffering may be sent to give us a better house, and our children
finer clothes, and that richer food may be put on our table."

Mrs. Home was silent for a moment, then she said,--

"Angus, forgive me, I did not look at it in that light."

"No, my dearest, and because I so pity her, if her father really is
guilty, I do not want you unnecessarily to pain Miss Harman. You
remember my telling you of that fine girl I met in Regent's Park
yesterday, the girl who was so kind and nice to our children. I have
just been up with Harold, and he tells me that your Mi