e! What a blessing it is, that you
think, and feel, and will act, with me--making my duty easy instead of
difficult!"

"I was going to ask," observed Margaret, "whether you have no
misgiving--no doubt whatever that you are right in refusing all this
money."

"Not the slightest doubt, Margaret. The case is not in any degree
altered by my change of fortune. The facts remain, that my sisters have
received nothing yet from the property, while I have had my professional
education out of it. That my profession does not at present supply us
with bread does not affect the question at all: nor can you think that
it does, I am sure. But Hester, my love, what think you of our prospect
of a hundred pounds?"

"A hundred pounds!"

"Yes; that is the sum set down for me when the honest will was made; and
that sum I shall of course retain."

"Oh, delightful! What a quantity of comfort we may get out of a hundred
pounds! How rich we shall be!"

"She is thinking already," said Margaret, "what sort of a pretty cloak
baby is to have for the summer."

"And Margaret must have something out of it, must not she, love?" asked
Hester.

"We will all enjoy it, with many thanks to my poor grandfather. Surely
this hundred pounds will set us on through the year."

"That will be very pleasant, really," observed Margaret. "To be sure of
bread for all the rest of the year! Oh, the value of a hundred pounds
to some people!"

"What a pity that Morris did not stay this one other day!" exclaimed
Hester. "And yet, perhaps, not so. It might have perplexed her mind
about leaving us, and induced her to give up her new place; and there is
nothing in a chance hundred pounds to justify that. It is better as it
is."

"All things are very well as they are," said Hope, "as long as we think
so. Now, I am going to call on Walcot. Good-bye."

"Stop, stop one moment! Stay, and see what I have found!" cried his
wife, in a tone of glee. "Look! Feel! Tell me--is not this our boy's
first tooth?"

"It is--it certainly is. I give you joy, my little fellow!"

"Worth all the hundreds of pounds in the world," observed Margaret,
coming in her turn to see and feel the little pearly edge, whose value
its owner was far from appreciating, while worried with the inquisition
which was made into the mysteries of his mouth. "Now it _is_ a pity
that Morris is not here!" all exclaimed.

"We must write to her. Perhaps we might have found it yesterday