eks it, and how much of
it he seeks."

"No," insisted the clergyman. Richling bent a look of inquiry upon him,
and he added:--

"The principle is bad, and you know it, Richling. 'Seek ye first'--you
know the text, and the assurance that follows with it--'all these things
shall be added'"--

"Oh, yes; but still"--

"'But still!'" exclaimed the little preacher; "why must everybody say
'but still'? Don't you see that that 'but still' is the refusal of
Christians to practise Christianity?"

Richling looked, but said nothing; and his friend hoped the word had
taken effect. But Richling was too deeply bitten to be cured by one or
two good sayings. After a moment he said:--

"I used to wonder to see nearly everybody struggling to be rich, but I
don't now. I don't justify it, but I understand it. It's flight from
oblivion. It's the natural longing to be seen and felt."

"Why isn't it enough to be felt?" asked the other. "Here, you make bread
and sell it. A thousand people eat it from your hand every day. Isn't
that something?"

"Yes; but it's all the bread. The bread's everything; I'm nothing. I'm
not asked to do or to be. I may exist or not; there will be bread all
the same. I see my remark pains you, but I can't help it. You've never
tried the thing. You've never encountered the mild contempt that people
in ease pay to those who pursue the 'industries.' You've never suffered
the condescension of rank to the ranks. You don't know the smart of
being only an arithmetical quantity in a world of achievements and
possessions."

"No," said the preacher, "maybe I haven't. But I should say you are just
the sort of man that ought to come through all that unsoured and unhurt.
Richling,"--he put on a lighter mood,--"you've got a moral indigestion.
You've accustomed yourself to the highest motives, and now these new
notions are not the highest, and you know and feel it. They don't
nourish you. They don't make you happy. Where are your old sentiments?
What's become of them?"

"Ah!" said Richling, "I got them from my wife. And the supply's nearly
run out."

"Get it renewed!" said the little man, quickly, putting on his hat and
extending a farewell hand. "Excuse me for saying so. I didn't intend it;
I dropped in to ask you again the name of that Italian whom you visit at
the prison,--the man I promised you I'd go and talk to. Yes--Ristofalo;
that's it. Good-by."

That night Richling wrote to his wife. What he wrote goes not