"I will read you one or two little bits first, which touch something Maggie and I were talking of yesterday. We do not want a bonfire to-day; it's too warm."
"No; we will make just a tiny little blaze by and by, to boil our kettle. It would be too warm for a bonfire; and there are no trees here to be cut."
"I should think not!" said Meredith looking up at the blue-green pine needles over his head. "Well, here's a story for you."
"Heathen?" asked Flora.
"No, Christian. 'There was a man, once upon a time, whom God had richly blessed. He had received a year's income of seven hundred thalers. Four hundred of them he needed and used for his house and family wants, and three hundred were left over. So he thought at first he would put the money out at interest, and enjoy the comfort of receiving rents which were growing while he was sleeping. As he was just setting about this, he read in a mission paper about the wants of the heathen; and the Sunday next following he heard a preaching about how the dear Lord is the safest of all to trust money to, and gives the best interest. So he made a short piece of work of it, and sent his three hundred thalers to the dear Lord for the conversion of the heathen, and said, "Lord, take Thou them; I got them from Thee, and there is all this left." "Wife," said he, when he came home at evening, "I have done a good bit of business to-day; I have got rid of my three hundred thalers, and am quit of any care of the money, over and above." "Then you may thank the dear Lord for that," said his wife. "And so I do," he answered.
"'Do I not hear at this point, not merely many a child of the world, but also many a believer, secretly half saying, "No, but what is out of reason is out of reason!"—and so do I see a certain compassionate smile playing about mouth-corners. But wait a bit; there is something coming that is more crazy yet. The next year the man was overloaded with such a blessing, that instead of seven hundred thalers, he made fourteen hundred thalers, and he did not know where it all came from. Then what does he do but take the surplus, one thousand thalers, and send it to the mission. Is the story true? do you say. You can ask the Lord "in that day;" he knows the story.'"
"I like that," said Maggie.
"Why?" Flora asked.
"I think it is nice," said Maggie with a shrug of her shoulders.
"I don't see it. What good to the man to have twice as much as he had before, if he must give it all right away again?"