"You don't want anything," Mousey answered simply. "I mean, not anything money could buy."
"That's true. I want nothing from anyone."
"Does it make you happy to be rich, Cousin Robert?" she asked. "Mother used to say money did not often make people happy. She and I had very little money, but we were very happy."
"Your mother had a contented disposition," he replied, not answering her question.
"Yes," she agreed, smiling; "she used to say her treasures were in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal."
"That's in the Bible, isn't it?" Mr. Harding said. "Well, on Sunday you shall read the chapter to me with that bit in it."
He took up his newspaper again; but though he tried to feel an interest in what he was reading, he found he could not; and at last, throwing it aside, he went to his secretaire, and soon forgot Mousey and the disquieting thoughts which his conversation with her had evoked, as he became absorbed in his account books.
[CHAPTER XI]
MR. HARDING'S GIFT
EVERY Sunday morning Mr. Harding took Mousey for a walk in the park, as he had done on that first Sunday she had spent at Haughton. It pleased the little girl to mark the difference in the foliage of the trees from one week to another; and she watched the spring give place to summer with keen delight.