"But can't us buy everything with plenty of money?" asked a seven-year-old urchin, on one of these occasions, looking solemnly up into his face with a pair of very round, big brown eyes.
"Not everything, my little man," he answered, smoothing the rough locks of the small inquirer with a very tender hand. "I could not buy you, for instance! Your mother wouldn't sell you!"
The child laughed.
"Oh, no! But I didn't mean me!"
"I know you didn't mean me!" and Helmsley smiled. "But suppose some one put a thousand golden sovereigns in a bag on one side, and you in your rough little torn clothes on the other, and asked your mother which she would like best to have—what do you think she would say?"
"She'd 'ave me!" and a smile of confident satisfaction beamed on the grinning little face like a ray of sunshine.
"Of course she would! The bag of sovereigns would be no use at all compared to you. So you see we cannot buy everything with money."
"But—most things?" queried the boy—"Eh?"
"Most things—perhaps," Helmsley answered, with a slight sigh. "But those 'most things' are not things of much value even when you get them. You can never buy love,—and that is the only real treasure,—the treasure of Heaven!"
The child looked at him, vaguely impressed by his sudden earnestness, but scarcely understanding his words.