"Let's divide it then,—a hundred for each of us," she urged.
Neither the younger girls nor their father would consent to this. But when Prudence stood very firm, and pleaded with them earnestly, they decided to divide it.
"I will deposit two hundred and fifty dollars for the four younger ones," he said, "and that will leave you as much."
So it was settled, and Prudence was a happy girl when she saw it safely put away in the bank.
"We can get it whenever we really need it, you know," she told her father joyfully. "It's such a comfort to know it's there! I feel just like a millionaire, I am sure. Do you think it would be all right to send Limber-Limb Grant a letter of thanks for it? We were horribly scared, but—well, I for one am willing to be horribly scared for such a lot of money as that!"
CHAPTER XI
ROMANCE COMES
Sometimes, Methodists, or Presbyterians or heretics, whatever we may be, we are irresistibly impelled to the conclusion that things were simply bound to happen! However slight the cause,—still that cause was predestined from the beginning of time. A girl may by the sheerest accident, step from the street-car a block ahead of her destination,—an irritating incident. But as she walks that block she may meet an old-time friend, and a stranger. And that stranger,—ah, you can never convince the girl that her stepping from the car too soon was not ordered when the foundations of the world were laid.
Even so with Prudence, good Methodist daughter that she was. We ask her, "What if you had not gone out for a ride that morning?" And Prudence, laughing, answers, "Oh, but I had to go, you see." "Well," we continue, "if you had not met him that way, you could have met him some other way, I suppose." "Oh, no," declares Prudence decidedly, "it had to happen just that way."