A sad and troubled look stole over Abbie's face as she answered: "My mother, remember, dear Ester, does not realize that she is not her own, but has been bought with a price. You and I know and feel that we must give an account of our stewardship. Ester, do you see how people who ask God to help them in every little thing which they have to decide—in the least expenditure of money—can after that deliberately fritter it away?"
"Do you ask God's help in these matters?"
"Why, certainly—" with the wondering look in her eyes, which Ester had learned to know and dislike—"'Whatsoever therefore ye do'—you know."
"But, Abbie, going out shopping to buy—handkerchiefs, for instance; that seems to me a very small thing to pray about."
"Even the purchase of handkerchiefs may involve a question of conscience, my dear Ester, as you would realize if you had seen the wicked purchases that I have in that line; and some way I never can feel that any thing that has to do with me is of less importance than a tiny sparrow, and yet, you know, He looks after them."
"Abbie, do you mean to say that in every little thing that you buy you weigh the subject, and discuss the right and wrong of it?"
"I certainly do try to find out just exactly what is right, and then do it; and it seems to me there is no act in this world so small as to be neither right nor wrong."
"Then," said Ester, with an impatient twitch of her dress from under
Abbie's rocker, "I don't see the use in being rich."
"Nobody is rich, Ester, only God; but I'm so glad sometimes that he has trusted me with so much of his wealth, that I feel like praying a prayer about that one thing—a thanksgiving. What else am I strange about, Ester?"
"Everything," with growing impatience. "I think it was as queer in you as possible not to go to the concert last evening with Uncle Ralph?"