to-night. How could you
possibly expect your guardian to be such a faithless old man."

"Faithless? Mr. Ingram, have you quite forgotten my father?"

"No, Beatrice, I remember him to-night."

"Let his face rise before you. Picture his face--his unworldly face."

"I see it, Beatrice. Yes, Meadowsweet was not cankered by the sordid
cares of life."

"Truly he was not? Go on thinking about him. He made money. How did he
spend it?"

"My dear child, your father was a very good man. His charities were
extraordinary and extensive. He gave away, hoping for nothing in return;
he was too liberal, I often told him so."

"You were his clergyman and you told him so."

A flash of indignation came out of Beatrice Meadowsweet's eyes.

"I don't think, Mr. Ingram, that a Greater than you has ever said that
to my father."

"Well, child, perhaps not. You reprove me, perhaps justly. Few of us
have your father's unworldly spirit."

"Don't you think his only daughter may inherit a little of it? Mr.
Ingram, what is money for?"

"Beatrice, you could argue any one into thinking with you. But I must
exercise my own common-sense."

"No, you must not. You must exercise your unworldly sense, and help me
in this matter."

"What! And help you to throw away a quarter of your fortune?"

"I shall have fifteen thousand pounds left, more than enough for the
requirements of any girl."

"I doubt if the wording of your father's will could give me the power
for a moment."

"I am sure it could. I am confident that in drawing his will he trusted
you absolutely and me absolutely. He often spoke to me about money, and
told me what a solemn trust riches were. He charged me like the man in
the parable not to bury my talent in a napkin, but to put it out to
usury. He said that he made you my guardian, because you were the most
unworldly-minded man he knew, and he told me many times that although he
could not give me absolute control of my money before I was twenty-one,
yet that no reasonable wish of mine would be refused by you."

"And you call this a reasonable wish?"

"I do. And so would my father if he were alive. Bring his face once
again before you, Rector, and you will agree with me."

The Rector sat down in his arm-chair, and shaded his eyes with one of
his long white hands. He sat for a long time motionless, and without
speaking. Beatrice stood by the mantelpiece; there was a small fire in
the grate; now and then a flame leaped up, a