"We should be rich instead of poor. It would make that difference, certainly."
"Angus, you talk as if this difference was nothing."
"Nothing! It is not quite nothing; but I confess it does not weigh much with me."
"If not for yourself, it might for the children's sakes; think what a difference money would make to our darlings."
"My dear wife, you quite forgot when speaking so, that they are God's little children as well as ours. He has said that not a sparrow falls without His loving knowledge. Is it likely when that is so, that He will see His children and ours either gain or suffer from such a paltry thing as money?"
"Then you will do nothing to get back our own?"
"If you mean that I will go to law on the chance of our receiving some money which may have been left to us, certainly I will not. The fact is, Lottie—you may think me very eccentric—but I cannot move in this matter. It seems to me to be entirely God's matter, not ours. If Mr. Harman has committed the dreadful sin you impute to him, God must bring it home to him. Before that poor man who for years has hidden such a sin in his heart, and lived such a life before his fellow-men, is fit to go back to the arms of His father, he must suffer dreadfully. I pray, from my heart I pray, that if he committed the sin he may have the suffering, for there is no other road to the Father; but I cannot pray that this awful suffering may be sent to give us a better house, and our children finer clothes, and that richer food may be put on our table."
Mrs. Home was silent for a moment, then she said,—
"Angus, forgive me, I did not look at it in that light."
"No, my dearest, and because I so pity her, if her father really is guilty, I do not want you unnecessarily to pain Miss Harman. You remember my telling you of that fine girl I met in Regent's Park yesterday, the girl who was so kind and nice to our children. I have just been up with Harold, and he tells me that your Miss Harman and his pretty lady are one and the same."