"It is more!" said the minister impressively. "It is a vindication of human nature under the worst circumstances. Nearly twenty years ago a young fellow came to me for assistance. He had been in a hospital with a fever, and had neither money, work or friends. He wanted to go out West, where he thought he might be able to find employment. I drew him out about his past life, and found he knew what it was to sleep in a haystack and be lodged in a jail: but I lent him twenty-five dollars----"
"And he has died a millionaire and bequeathed you a fortune," wound up Theodore dramatically, sitting upright.
"No," said the minister, smiling, "those things happen only in books. What the fellow has really done is to return me the amount I lent him, with a half-manly sort of a letter showing he has cherished a sense of gratitude all these years. That is much more than I expected."
"Conscience money!" groaned Beatrice. "I suppose it will go to the poor."
"Let us hope to the deserving poor, like me!" observed Theodore, dismally echoing the groan, and collapsing on the couch again.
"Or like father," said Miss Billy severely. "It would buy him lots of things he needs."
The minister sat tapping his glasses with smiling introspection. "When I was a lad," he said slowly, "I desired with all my heart and soul a certain steam toy. It was rather a clever contrivance, and of course, was expensive. But I wanted it more than I've wanted anything since. Sometimes I dream I am a boy again, and always I see standing in the black shadow of disappointment that steam toy."
"And father's going to buy it now," said Theodore breathlessly.
"No," said the minister, shaking his head: "It's too late! that's the worst of it. But that was a distinct disappointment in my life that no amount of reasoning could reason me out of."
"It makes me think of an incident of my own childhood," said Mrs. Lee. "When I was about five years old, I attended my first party, given by a neighbour's child. All I can remember is that a black-eyed lady with dark curly hair passed a platter of tarts, and with an indistinct idea that it was a well-bred thing to do, I said, 'No, thank you,--I don't eat tarts.' Then I sat with welling eyes watching the other little guests eat theirs. It was a very real grief. I cried for that tart in the loneliness of many nights,--and I haven't forgotten it in thirty years."