"What do you mean, Mr. Archer?" she faltered out.
"I mean you can give me yourself, Sara, and that'll clear all scores."
"But, Mr. Archer—you've been a-teaching of me good things—You don't mean to marry me!" exclaimed Sara, bursting into tears.
"Of course I do, Sara. Don't cry about it. I won't if you don't like."
This is how Stephen came to change his mind about his stock in trade.
THE GIFTS OF THE CHILD CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
"My hearers, we grow old," said the preacher. "Be it summer or be it spring with us now, autumn will soon settle down into winter, that winter whose snow melts only in the grave. The wind of the world sets for the tomb. Some of us rejoice to be swept along on its swift wings, and hear it bellowing in the hollows of earth and sky; but it will grow a terror to the man of trembling limb and withered brain, until at length he will long for the shelter of the tomb to escape its roaring and buffeting. Happy the man who shall then be able to believe that old age itself, with its pitiable decays and sad dreams of youth, is the chastening of the Lord, a sure sign of his love and his fatherhood."