"Forty-two dollars and eighty-six cents," said Doris practically. "But the bills for this month are paid—I can see the hand of a tender Providence in that. For it is mighty seldom we have the bills paid and forty-two dollars and eighty-six cents besides."
"The forty-two dollars will run you here at home, and the June salary will see me through at Chicago."
"Just as I am always trying to show you," said Zee. "We preachers have our troubles, but there is always a plain path made for us."
"When we get to it, yes. The trouble is that some of us have a habit of wanting to see the path before we get there. I like to use a telescope on it, miles ahead, I am afraid," her father admitted.
How simply and naturally things worked out, after all the months of anxious fear. The vacation was arranged without the slightest trouble. The June salary was paid in advance with no dissenting voice. And one elder, the dearest of them all, said gently:
"And there are a few of us who wish to make up a little purse—oh, not much—just a little word of appreciation, you know—we'll get it together and put it into the bank for you—it may help a little."
Mr. Artman's conscience kept him awake hours that night, for he had been worrying about money, too—worrying in spite of the fact that every step had been cleared when the time for stepping came—and he had worried about the bills there would be when the operation was over and he was at home again. For his expenses in Chicago would be heavy, even though he went to the Presbyterian hospital where "they do ministers for nothing." And Doctor Hancock had arranged with the surgeon that the expense of the operation could wait till a convenient time. The girls' expenses would be much lighter when school was out, and they would not use the car quite so often, only now and then when they could not resist the luring call of it.
"I want you to come for a drive with me in my car to-night, Doris," Mr. MacCammon said one evening. "You have taken me in yours several times and you are always so concerned with speedometers and gears that you pay no attention to my conversation. To-night you go joy-riding on my gas."
"Thank you, I shall be glad to," said Doris in her very politest manner, for to go joy-riding on some other person's gas was a great treat, and to go joy-riding on Mr. MacCammon's gas was the greatest treat of all. So she put on the charming blue motor hat—home-made out of old veils and scraps of velvet, but which, as Rosalie said, was just as flirtatious as though it had cost forty-two dollars and eighty-six cents at Marshall Field's. Mr. MacCammon helped her into the car very formally, and Rosalie from the front porch waved them away.
"Father," she said to him when the car had disappeared, "I hope your eyes have not affected your mental vision. I suppose you realize that your perfectly wonderfully philosophical psychologist or whatever he is, is quite humanly and commonplacely and every-dayly in love with your darling Doris."