ather
defiantly.

"It is a larger place, Miss Redwood," said the minister.

"Ain't Shadywalk big enough for a little mite of a thing like her?"

"I don't know," said the minister. "'Big enough' depends upon what she
wants, or what anybody wants. I knew a man once who said he had seen
everything in the world there was to be seen, and he was quite at a
loss what to do with himself. You perceive the world was not 'big
enough' for him. And another man once wrote, 'My _mind_ to me a kingdom
is.' Difference of taste, you see."

"That first fellow thought his head was only made to set his eyes in, I
s'pose," said the housekeeper dryly.

"Seemed to be all the use he had for it," said the minister.

"But that other man," said Matilda,--"was he contented with himself all
alone, and wanted nothing else?"

"I hope not," said Mr. Richmond smiling. "That's a new view of the
case. Your king David hit the truth more surely," he went on addressing
David, "when he said, 'The Lord is the portion of my inheritance.'"

David's eye brightened; but then he said,

"I have read the words, but I never understood exactly what he meant."

"Your people, you remember, on taking possession of the promised land,
had it divided to them by lot; each tribe and family took its share as
it was portioned out to them by Joshua."

"Yes, I know," David answered.

"So from that time each family had its own inalienable lands, which
were the inheritance of that family; its portion and riches; for the
Hebrews were not in those days a commercial people."

David assented, looking a little surprised.

"What should a man mean, who declared, disregarding all this, that his
portion and inheritance was the Lord himself?"

The boy's keen, intelligent eyes looked deep into the intent blue ones
regarding him.

"Sir, I do not know," he said at length. "Was it, that he expected the
Highest would give him greater possessions?"

"Notice, he says not his inheritance is _from_ the Lord, but is the
Lord himself."

"I don't understand it," said David.

"In another place, when he was nearly done with earthly possessions, he
says again, 'My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of
my heart and my portion for ever.' It is an inheritance that exists
beyond time, you see."

"I don't understand it, sir," David repeated.

"And in that sixteenth psalm he goes on to declare his content in his
portion, in that it is not of earth. 'The lines are fallen